


In Our Family Portrait

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Aquaman - All Media Types, Batman - All Media Types, DC Cinematic Universe, DCU (Comics), Green Arrow - All Media Types, Green Lantern - All Media Types, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Family, Brother-Brother Relationships, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Gotham's Rogue Gallery, Great Depression, Growing Up, Hal Jordan is possibly the sappiest of Jason's fathers in this fic, Jason Todd is Aqualad, Jason Todd is Speedy, Jason Todd is Wonderboy, Jason is also a currently unnamed time traveling hero, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Roy Harper is also Speedy, Royalty, Time Travel, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12999408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: A lie: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way."Or: Five universes in which a different member of the Justice League is Jason's parent and one where he's raised by someone outside of the League.





	1. The First Son of Themyscira I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just letting you know before you start that I used the origin story from the Wonder Woman 2017 movie, but not really anything else from the movie in this? It starts directly after that movie, but then goes into a comic timeline.

  
"Oh dear," Etta said, her voice soft as she watched Diana enter the kitchen in their small home. The older woman had been kinder to Diana than was merited given the short time they had known each other. She had come back to the city heartbroken and alone, but Etta had gathered her in her arms and taken her in. Diana didn't think there was anything she could do in the world to repay that debt. "You look positively awful. Did you vomit again?"

"Yes," Diana said, unable to help the note of misery in her voice. There was no illness like this on Themyscria, so she had never been sick like this before. Etta and the boys, who visited her in varying frequencies, theorized that her frequent illnesses had to do with being in a new place. "I apologize."

"You don't need to apologize for being sick," Etta dismissed. "I'll make you some tea to settle your stomach."

"Thank you," Diana said. She took a seat at the small table, allowing herself to slump against it.

"Of course, dear," Etta said. She walked around the kitchen, gathering the necessities for making their tea. "Still, I'm starting to worry a little bit about you. You've been in London almost two months now. I thought for sure this would have cleared up by now." Diana hummed a little bit, closing her eyes. Etta's voice wasn't the same as her mother's, but the sound of a woman's voice reminded her of her home. Diana was comforted by it. "It's almost as if you're-"

Etta cut off abruptly.

When a moment passed without Etta picking up her thought, Diana peeled her eyes open. "Etta? What's wrong?"

"Diana," Etta said. Her voice was very different from before. It was softer, cautious. "Did you and Captain Trevor- Did you stay the night together?"

Diana didn't know how that could be relevant to her illness, but she answered, "Yes. Once."

She thought about No Man's land, about dancing in the dim glow of the town's lights as the snow fell around them. She thought about his hand in hers, leading her up the stairs to his room, and about the softness of his lips against her own. She thought about the weight of his body and the fire that he had made rush through her.

It had been two months since she lost him, but in this moment her heartbreak seemed as fresh as it had when she defeated Ares.

She always thought of it as the day she defeated Ares. She couldn't allow herself to think of it as the day she'd lost Steve.

"And in the entire time you've stayed with me you haven't had a..." Etta trailed off. After a moment, she let out a soft, "Oh dear."

Diana sat up a little straighter. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know if I would say something is wrong," Etta said. She'd been turned away from Diana, but now she looked directly at her. "I think you might be pregnant, Diana."

"Pregnant," Diana echoed.

Other than herself, there had been no children on Themyscira. The prospect of having a child should have been terrifying since she had no experience with them. It wasn't.

Instead, all she could think was that if she was pregnant than it had to be Steve's child.

If she was pregnant, then there would be a piece of Steve still in this world.

* * *

Diana had learned in her time in the city that this world was not kind to women, but now she learned that this world wasn't kind to mothers either. Especially when those mothers didn't have a man by their side.

She thought it was ridiculous. Diana had been raised exclusively by women. Her mother was the Queen of the Amazons and the strongest person she knew. A husband would be helpful when raising a child, but Diana didn't think a man was _necessary_  for anything other than creating the child.

Her friends told her that what she experienced as her stomach grew rounder was nicer than what would have happened a few years ago. A lot of men had died in the war. There were plenty of women who had been alone left with young children or growing babies to take care of. It had improved the opinion of single mothers slightly, but not nearly enough. Diana thought that these women in particular deserved more respect than they got. Often they were young women who had to stand on their own feet and pull themselves together even while their heart sat shattered in their chest.

The change in mentality wasn't enough to keep Diana from hearing somethings though. There were still people who called her names that had Charlie clenching his fists when she asked what they meant, still people who gave her looks when walking around that had Etta turning them down a different street, still people who had told her her baby was a mistake or a problem.

Diana didn't care about any of that, however.

She knew what her child was - a gift from the gods.

Diana had the ability to kill a god, but she had only used it to destroy one and it had been one that was a danger to humans, demi-gods, and gods alike. The gods must have known how things would turn out with Steve, because in return for the favor she'd done them they made sure she carried his child.

Her child was not a mistake. Her child was the greatest gift she had ever been given.

Etta helped her find a group of women like herself. Some of them were so like her, women who had lost the men they loved to war and sacrifice, that hearing their stories renewed her heartbreak. Some of them were so different that she wanted nothing more than to track down the father's of their children and make them beg for mercy.

All of them became close friends.

They helped her figure out what to expect from her pregnancy as well as the birth. They gave her tips about how to manage various aspects of it. Along with Etta and the boys, they helped her navigate this new world she had become apart of it. They helped her navigate society and all of the social aspects of it that were so different from her homeland.

As Diana got further along in her pregnancy, the sex of the baby became a topic amongst her new family. The women from her group thought the fact that she was, apparently, carrying low indicated that she would have a boy. Charlie and Sameer both spoke about a baby girl, but neither of them seemed to have any sort of evidence for that aside from wishful thinking. The Chief only saw her once during her pregnancy, he visited the least often since his work kept him away from the city, but he had seemed amused by Charlie and Sameer in a way that spoke of disagreement.

Etta was usually far too busy fretting over Diana and the baby's health to worry about the gender.

Diana had expected a daughter. To her, it had seemed natural that the same gods who had decided only women should live on Themyscira would decide that the child of a Themysciran would also be a woman.

In the end, Diana was wrong.

She gave birth to the first son of Themyscira.

* * *

"Mom!" Diana managed to set her feet and lock her stance in just before the small body crashed into her. Her son wasn't very big, but if she didn't prepare for moments like this than even she would wobble. Small arms wrapped around her knees, squeezing tightly. "You're home!"

"Hello, Jason," Diana greeted, looking down at her son.

Jason was eight years old. He'd gotten Steve's glacier blue eyes, but Diana's thick black hair. He'd been born with a thick strip of white in his hair, a mark from the gods. Diana had been gone for two weeks. Since having Jason the government had approached her about her help in the war and she'd begun working with them on the occasional military op. It didn't happen very often, but the missions she did were ones that she genuinely believed needed to be done and the pay for her help was enough to support a modest lifestyle. In the time she'd been gone, Jason's hair had grown longer so it'd started curling like her own.

Outwardly, her son didn't appear to be any different from the other children in their neighborhood. He looked like them, grew like any other child, but that didn't mean much. Diana's own growth had been that of a normal human when she was that age. Past that, though, her son was already gaining the abilities that marked him as an Amazon, the extra strength and speed and reflexes that Diana had. He would only have another decade or so before his aging slowed like hers and the other Amazon's.

For now, though, he was a child.

Diana would cherish her son for her entire life, but she would cherish this time with him even more than his later years.

She reached one hand up, cupping his cheek in her hand. She pressed her thumb, gently against the bruise under his eye. "And you appear to have been getting into trouble while I was gone."

"Only for good reasons," Jason said.

"And what reasons are those?" Diana asked.

"The older boys were making fun of Carmelo," Jason told her. "So I told them to stop and they didn't listen!"

"So you hit them?"

"Yeah!"

Diana hummed a bit. She lifted her other hand up as well, resting it against a bandage on the other side of his face this time. "And what about this one?"

"Jane's brother was kicking one of the stray dogs!" Jason insisted. "I couldn't let him get away with that!"

"No, of course not," Diana said. With her hands on either side of his face, Diana was able to turn his face to each side so she could look for any other injuries. He made a noise of protest, but when she lifted an eyebrow at him he quieted again. He was strong for an eight year old, but his super strength hadn't kicked in the way hers had quite yet. It made him a bit of an even match with the older boys that he frequently got into fights with, but that meant that usually they got in a few hits on her son before his training could give him an upper hand. When she was satisfied, finding a few knicks but nothing worth really mentioning, she used her grip on his face to move him so she could look in his eyes. "Listen to me, little one. I am very proud of you for sticking up for people who can't stick up for themselves, but you must learn that there are ways to protect people that don't involve using your fists."

"I'm good with my fists though," Jason argued. "If I try to use my words, the older boys just laugh at me and tell me to go away."

"When you're small, you have to learn the right words to make people listen. I'm not telling you that force is bad, but that sometimes there are ways to resolve conflicts without it," Diana told him. Instead of saying anything else, she decided to let the conversation rest there so that Jason could think about what she'd said. She had missed her son while she was gone and she honestly was proud of him for sticking up for people that were being bullied, so as she dropped her hands from his face she asked, "Now then, why don't we go get Etta and go to the parlor for some ice cream?"

Diana had the means for her and Jason to live by themselves, but Etta was important to her. Even when Diana had made enough money for a better house, she had insisted on Etta staying with them in return for all the help that Etta had given her. Etta had agreed and she'd been a valuable help in raising Jason.

"Really?" Jason asked.

Diana nodded. "Yes."

"Yes!" Jason cheered. He unwrapped his arms from around her, taking off down the hallway and shouting, "Aunt Etta! Mom said we can go get ice cream!"

* * *

Diana was deeply and intensely relieved that she had Jason when she did.

It meant that Jason got to have a fun, care free childhood. He got to be loud and rowdy. He got to play with his friends without any worries. He played soccer in the streets with the children in the neighbor that were around his age, begged for money to go see a picture or get a milkshake with his friends, and would have a million stories for Diana anytime that she had to leave him for an extended period of time. As he got a little older and started wanting more responsibility, Diana started giving him a small allowance in return for helping Etta with the housework when she wasn't around to help herself. On those days, he would come back with his entire allowance gone and a silly toy in his hand that would inevitably get left somewhere around the house until Diana or Etta accidentally stepped on it. 

He grew up in years when people had time to visit for silly reasons. He got to spend some evenings running around in the garden with Charlie, who had always been their most frequent visitor, until the older man's bones were creaking too much to chase him anymore. Some evenings he would climb up onto the couch to beg Sameer to tell him stories even though he'd only intended to stay for dinner. Sameer was happy to oblige, his voice rising and falling as he acted out each character until Jason fell asleep. On the rare occasion that Chief visited, Jason would spend the entire day inside the house, sitting cross legged in front of the man and hanging onto his every word he had to say.

Despite all the happy times, though, England had never completely recovered from the war and as Jason entered his teenage years the depression hit even harder. Diana managed to make it through those years alright, the government had a vested interest in her that she knew came mostly from seeing her as a threat, but the same couldn't be said for everyone else in their neighborhood.

Jason was still young in those years, but he stepped up.

He volunteered himself to babysit all of the children in the neighborhood, free of any payment, so that their parents and older siblings could spend the most time possible looking for and doing their work. There was rarely a time when she found him with anything less than three younger children following him around. He did an excellent job with all of them, making everyone sit down to do their homework after school and then playing with them until they forgot whatever was going on at home. The depression was hard, but Jason made sure that no one that he knew had to worry about their children being safe when they were trying to provided for them.

She didn't give Jason an allowance anymore, but that was because he had requested that she let him use that money to help people instead. So sometimes when clothing or school supplies became too worn out, Jason would buy something and give it to the person who needed it. When people were too proud to take his help, he'd come up with excuses that would convince them. There was an older man who wouldn't take the winter coat Jason bought him, so Jason told the man that he'd be doing Jason a favor by taking it because Jason hadn't realized how much he'd grown and the coat was simply too small for him now.

Diana grew prouder of him each day.

She would always miss the days when her son was a boy, when he'd needed her protection and guidance. He still needed those things, of course, but he'd grown up into a good man and the decisions he made without her were ones that made her proud.

She knew that Steve would have been just as proud of the man their son had become.

* * *

There was a soft knock against Diana's bedroom door. Then a quiet, "Mom? Can I come in?"

"Of course," Diana said.

Jason pulled the door open slowly at first. When Diana smiled at him and beckoned him in, he opened it more confidently and stepped inside.

Her son was twenty-one now, almost twenty-two, but the depression had kept him living with her instead of striking out on his own. While it had been a horrible decade for so many people, Diana found that some selfish part of her was glad for these extra years with her son. They would both live for a long time, but she knew that they wouldn't spend that entire time as close to each other as they were now.

The depression might have kept Jason from leaving his childhood home, but it hadn't kept him from growing. He'd shot up several feet since he was a boy, they both stood at six feet, and he weighed almost a hundred pounds more than her. Once he had his puberty, his body had gained muscle in all of the places where hers couldn't. The training she put him through, as close to her own as she could given the different environment, had only allowed him to put on even more. 

"Hello," Diana greeted. "I thought you were going out with Lera tonight. I wasn't expecting to see you until after dinner."

"I am, but we're going out a little later," Jason said. His expression was unusually serious, but his face colored a light pink at the mention of the girl he'd been seeing. Jason had found a job in a factory near the end of the decade and Lera's brother, Norton, worked with him. The two of them had met when she dropped a lunch off for Norton one day. Etta was positively ecstatic to see Jason, who was usually respectful to the point of shyness when it came to women, finally chasing a girl. Diana was happy to see both of them happy. It'd been a rough decade, with Chief returning to America on a more permanent basis and Charlie dying only a year ago, and it was nice to see her family smiling. "I just... I guess I made a decision about something finally and I thought I should tell you as soon as I could."

Diana knew her son and she knew what he was going to tell her. She'd been watching him wrestle with this decision for almost a year now. But she wanted him to tell her in whatever way he felt best, so she said, "What is it?"

He straightened his shoulders, standing up a bit taller. It seemed like now that he'd come this far, he was more confident and determined to go through with it. "I'm going to enlist."

"Okay," Diana said.

She'd been sitting on her bed when Jason walked in, but now she moved to get up.

As she got to her feet, Jason said, sounding a little confused, "That's all you have to say?"

"Jason, I am a warrior. Your father was a spy," Diana told him. She moved in front of the stand to the left of her bed as she spoke, sliding the drawer open. She grabbed a small, black box out of it before turning back to Jason. "And you, little one, take after both of us in all of the best ways. You want to help people and the military is the way that warriors of this time help people. I'm not surprised you've chosen this path."

"Oh..." Jason sounded like he didn't quite know what to think of what she'd said. He was quiet for a moment before his eyes locked on the box in her hand. "What's that?"

"A gift for you," Diana said. She walked closer to him. "I wasn't sure when to give it to you. Etta told me that your eighteenth or twenty-first birthday would have been considered normal for this type of thing, but it didn't feel right."

Jason reached out. He glanced up at Diana for permission, than slipped the box from her grasp when she gave him an approving nod. He flipped the box open, peering down. "It's a watch."

"It was something your father gave me before he died," Diana said. "He didn't know about you, but I think that he would've wanted you to have it now."

Jason was quiet for a moment before looking up at her. "Are you sure, mom? I don't want to take the only thing you have of him."

"The watch isn't the only thing I have of him." She reached forward, putting her hands on either side of his face. She leaned in, pressing a kiss against his forehead. "I have you. That's the best gift your father could ever have given me."

* * *

Jason enlisted just like any other man his age, but the military knew what he was and it wasn't very long before he was separated from the other new soldiers. The military didn't want Jason in one of their uniforms, they wanted him to have one of his own.

Diana insisted that they let her handle it. Her uniform was impeccable, practically impenetrable, and it was what had allowed them to use Diana to her full potential, so they agreed readily.

She went to Themyscira to have it created. Their laws said that any man that stepped foot on the island would be killed unless he had proven himself and Jason had yet to do that in the ways that their laws required, so Jason had never set foot  on their homeland. Diana had visited since his birth, though, and their people loved him already.

They created a shirt made of the same hard leather as her own armor and colored it a deep red. The W that exists in gold on her breasts was put across the chest. The design was a little sharper to demonstrate the danger of men. Diana didn't find any offense in that. Her son was as dangerous as any other man in the world, but he was also gentle and caring in a way that many are not. There are no sleeve so that his movement won't be restricted. Instead the leather was rimmed with silver at his shoulders. Diana had shared tales of her new world with them, so they attached a deep red hood incase he ever needed to hide his face the way she had occasionally had to.

They made him pants in the same shade as her skirt. The leather workers that created the costume thought it was ridiculous and restricting, but Diana insisted. She agreed that the pants would restrict her son's movement, but Jason was built more for brute force than speed and he needed the protection. They created dark, silver boots. They were shorter than her own, but they would protect the most vulnerable parts of his legs. 

Diana worked on a battle tiara and the gauntlets herself. The tiara wasn't strictly speaking necessary, but it was a mark of their people and Jason's would serve as a mark of their family in the same way that her own did. She did it alone, at first, but after several hours her mother came in to help. She would not let her grandson go into a war unprotected anymore than she would let Diana. The headpiece was slim, made out of a strong silver colored with a singular red gem in the center. The gauntlets were made black cloth that would wrap around his middle finger with a strong, silver metal over it which would cover his forearm. Jason's fists had always been his weapon of choice and the cloth would absorb some of the impact, lessen the damage to himself.

The morning before she left to take it back home, they found a lasso like her own in the temple of the gods.

When everything was done, she gathered the entire ensemble up and took it back to England with her.

Jason had been pushed through intensive training courses while she was gone and by the time she was back, he was almost ready for active duty.

As his career in the military began, Jason picked up the name Wonder Boy. He complained about it to everyone who would listen, to Diana and Etta when they were all in one place for a nice family dinner and to his squad whenever one of them mocked him with it and even to his superiors when they referred to him by it during debriefs, but he never quite shook the name despite having already been twenty-two when he took the suit.

The two of them rarely worked together. Diana could pack a punch just as well as Jason did, but she was more mobile and her team tended more towards missions that required quick handling, a finer touch. Jason's team was essentially a strike team. Jason was brute force, the one who the military sent with the specific purpose of burning everyone and everything too the ground.

There was blood on both of their hands.

Neither of them were ashamed of it.

And when the war was nearing it's end and the British tore through German territory, Diana and Jason worked side-by-side as they freed the prisoners in each camp.

Neither of them flinched from the blood that gathered on their hands.

Those kills weren't just something not to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hellllo. I hope you guys enjoyed Diana's chapter of this? Diana as Jason's mom is kind of what started this idea and then it just...spiraled into something more when I thought on it?
> 
> 2) These chapters are all aus so there's gonna be a lot of timeline mixing and matching so... expect more chapters which pull from all over the movieverse, tv-verse, and comicverse. 
> 
> 3) I am sure this is RIFE with historical inaccuracies and I am so sorry about that. I did my best?
> 
> 4) I feel like I made it sound like Diana worked /for/ the military, but I more wanted Diana working /with/ the military if that makes sense?
> 
> 5) [This](https://arkanoart.deviantart.com/art/Wonderboy-415036410) is Jason's Wonder Boy Costume. For clarification, this is NOT my art. 
> 
> 6) Also!! Please let me know if you're Jewish and you think I overstepped at the end. I very heavily believe that with the historical aspect of the new Wonder Woman, Diana would have been crushing every concentration camp she could. And at the same time, I find that Jason has always been about killing those who deserve it and there is no one who deserves it more than a Nazi. But I do not want to offend or step on anyone's history.


	2. The Crown Prince of Atlantis I

Arthur hurried across the room, making his way to the giant bed in the center of it.

"Love," Arthur called, not quite capable of keeping the panic out of his voice. When he reached the bed he dropped to his knees next to it. He was a a King, but he wasn't the type of man that would let his pride keep him from showing fear for those that he loved. Especially not in the safety of his bedroom. He reached out, resting his hand against his wife's cheek. "How are you feeling? Are you okay? Is the baby okay? How can I-"

"Arthur, darling," Mera interrupted. There was a small smile on her face and her eyes sparkled with mirth. It settled some of the worry in Arthur's gut. She was buried under the blankets, but she withdrew one hand from under them and settled it over his. "Everything is fine."

"I was told you fainted."

"I did, but it wasn't anything to be worried about," Mera said. Arthur opened his mouth to argue that his pregnant wife fainting was _definitely_  something worth worrying about, but Mera spoke again before he could get the words out. "I have already been examined by the Doctors. It was merely overexertion. I didn't realize how much the use of my magic would effect me."

"Everything is okay?" Arthur asked.

He knew that he had been a little over protection of her during the beginning of her pregnancy and that it was only getting worse as she progressed. But she was his wife and he loved and adored her.

He had lost the family he had on Earth, his mother had died when he was young and his father had died before he'd started his life in Atlantis. He didn't want to lose the family that he had now. So, he worried for her and the child of theirs that she was carrying.

"Everything is okay," Mera assured him. He was lucky that she seemed to find his hovering more amusing than annoying. He wasn't sure how he would respond if she found it irritating. "I am okay. The doctors checked the baby as well. He's okay."

Relief rushed through Arthur. He closed his eyes and let out a breathe, the tension in his shoulders finally draining out. He'd been worried ever since he'd been told that Mera had passed out while working earlier that afternoon. He'd had a few duties that couldn't be rearranged, but he'd spent the entire time worrying for his wife and wanting to run to her side.

When he opened his eyes again, he slid the hand on her face up to smooth her hair back and leaned in to press a kiss against her forehead. He spoke against her skin when he said, "I love you."

"I love you too," she responded.

There was a quiet moment when Arthur just enjoyed being close to her, enjoyed knowing that she was safe and healthy after being worried for so long, then something occurred to him.

He pulled back, eyes wide, "He?"

"The Doctor asked me if I wished to know when he looked over me and I told him yes," Mera said. "I thought it would be nice to tell you myself."

Her words were all the confirmation he needed that he had heard correctly.

"A son," Arthur said, words slipping out of his mouth in a quiet and awe-struck tone. "We're going to have a son."

Mera's hand had slipped away from his when he'd moved to smooth her hair back. She'd placed it on her stomach instead, palm resting on the curve of her stomach.

Arthur had been ecstatic about the pregnancy since Mera told him, but the day when they'd first noticed her bump was a day that had been both one of the happiest and scariest days of his life. He had felt a sort of overwhelming joy at the thought of his child, but there had also been a crushing fear because the baby had suddenly seemed so much more _real_  and that had been terrifying because Arthur had no idea how to be a father.

Thinking about the fact that the child growing in Mera was a boy had him feeling the same way, only a thousand times worse.

Mera would be an excellent mother, of that Arthur had no doubt. It was his own abilities to be a role model for their son, to show their son not just how men should act and treat people but also how a King was expected to act and treat people, that he found so nerve wrecking.

"Arthur, darling," Mera said. Her words dragged Arthur out of his thoughts.

He focused back on her, asking, "Yes, love?"

"It is going to be okay," she told him. Mera had a way of knowing what Arthur was thinking and it was obvious when she added, "You're going to be a good father."

Arthur was a confident man, but Mera also had a talent for building him up in the moments when he wavered. It didn't quite work in this instance, though.

Feeling like an agreement would be a lie, he settled for telling her, "I hope so."

* * *

The next few months passed in the same wave of shifting emotions, fear and happiness and an intense feeling of not being good enough, and over protectiveness.

Mera's amusement at his behavior seemed to spread to the rest of the castle. When he was swimming through the castle, in a hurry to get back to Mera's side after being out doing something, he would see the guards lips twitching as they tried to keep their smiles back. On the occasions when he was able to be with Mera during a check-up, the Doctors always seemed vaguely amused at every question Arthur had. When they had meetings with their aides Arthur would fret about Mera for the entire meeting, something which usually had one or two of them letting out quiet laughs.

Arthur usually managed to keep it together when he was out in Atlantis, amongst their people, but some of his fear must have shown because he occasionally got comments from people. There were men who he saw when he was in the city who told him they knew how he felt as well as women who laughed and said it was lovely that he cared so much but they were certain that Queen Mera had it under control.

Luckily Mera did seem to have it under control and a few months later they had a healthy, gorgeous baby boy.

Arthur had been terrified about being a bad role model, a bad father, for the entirety of the pregnancy, but when he came into the room after the birth and found Mera lying down with their son in her arms all of those fears were wiped away. Not because Arthur was suddenly certain that he would be a great father, but because Arthur knew that no matter how afraid he was he would have make it work.

The wonderful, beautiful child in Mera's arms was theirs.

Arthur _had_  to be his best for him regardless of how absolutely terrified he was.

They didn't name him immediately.

They took a few days off from being a King and Queen in order to adjust to being parents. They told the aides to come see them if anything too disastrous popped up, but neither Arthur or Mera expected something like that to happen to happen during the few days they would be gone and they trusted their aides to take care of the mundane tasks for a little while. 

Those days were messy and Arthur forgot how it felt to be well rested after only two nights. Their son was just as disgusting and exhausting as any other child his age. But those days were also filled with moments that were light and soft-hearted. There were naps with his son lying on his bare chest. There were nights when he woke up to find Mera with their son in her arms, walking him around as she sang Atlantean lullabies. Those were moments to cherish.

Before long, though, Arthur had to return to his duties as King.

Mera would have more time before she returned to her duties in full, but Arthur's return would have their Kingdom expecting news about their Prince and a Prince needed a name.

They called him Jason.

* * *

"Dad! I wanna try that!"

Arthur had been scanning the crowd in front of them, but now he looked down at his son.

Jason was a few weeks shy of eight years old. He was a little taller than most boys his age, but Arthur was a large man and Jason was still small compared to his father. He had hair the same shade of red as Mera's, but his eyes were the same shade of light blue that Arthur's were. He was wearing a dark navy blue tee-shirt with a gray whale in the center and a pair of light blue and white stripped shorts. On his feet were a pair of brown sandals.

They'd discovered during an attack on Atlantis during Jason's early years that despite Jason being mostly Atlantean, he'd gotten enough of Arthur's human genes to allow him to live on land. He got dehydrated a little quicker than normal humans, but other than that he handled the surface as well as Arthur did.

It'd become a sort of tradition for the two of them to take a trip to the surface together every year. They only ever went for a weekend or so, but it was a good tradition.

Taking the time to come to the surface with Jason meant that Arthur got a break from the stress of being a King, got to spend some quality time with his son without worrying about someone demanding his attention, and could spend sometime on the surface so that he didn't miss it so much. It was a home that he had never felt as comfortable with as he did Atlantis, but it had been his home non-the-less. At the same time, having Arthur take Jason away for a few days gave Mera a few days where she didn't have to worry about their son and could focus on her duties as Queen. She was always worried when her son was far away, but she trusted that her husband would protect him.

Mera took Jason on a trip once a year as well. Her trips with their son served much the same purpose, letting her bond with Jason outside of the worry that someone would interrupt them and allowing Arthur a few days to focus on being a King instead of balancing being a King and a father.

"Dad," Jason begged. The two of them were holding hands so that Jason wouldn't get lost in the crowd, he could hold his own in Atlantis but on the surface he wasn't quite as familiar with his surroundings and Arthur didn't like letting him stray too far, and now Jason used the hold to tug on Arthur's hand. As if Arthur wasn't already looking at him and giving Jason his attention. "Please? Please?  _Please?"_

He looked in the direction that Jason was pointing his other hand in.

The two of them were at the pier today. They'd spent most of the morning riding everything that had caught Jason's attention and now they were walking down the row of game stalls. Jason's attention had been caught by a water-gun game, one where contestants aimed the gun so the water would fill a tube and waited to see who could get a balloon inside to the top first. There was a group of teenagers already sitting on the stools, apparently waiting for more contestants to join them.

"We can play," Arthur agreed.

"Yes!" Jason cheered. Arthur's lips twitched up in a small smile, feeling happy to have pleased his son and amused by Jason's enthusiasm. As Jason started making his way towards the group, Arthur going along with the way Jason was tugging him along, he exclaimed, "I'm going to kick your butt dad!"

Arthur counted himself lucky that it hadn't been a swear at the end of that sentence. Being a warrior in Atlantis came with a great deal of pride and Jason was determined to become one himself. Having been banned from following Arthur on his Aquaman missions, Jason had taken to following the guards around the palace and he'd picked up more than a few unsavory phrases that were passed around when no one realized he was there. It'd gotten better once everyone had realized that Jason was following them and might be around, but some of the foul language still lingered.

"Are you?" Arthur asked.

"Yup!" Jason said. "And then I'm going to get mom that huge dolphin."

"Your mother does love dolphins," Arthur said. Smiling a little bit, he said, "Maybe _I'll_  win and give her the dolphin as a gift."

Jason gasped, looking over at Arthur with an expression of pure betrayal. Arthur felt his grin widen. "Dad, no! It's going to be my gift to mom!"

"You'll have to beat me to get it," Arthur told him.

"I will!" Jason swore. "I definitely, definitely will!"

* * *

Being King meant that Arthur didn't spend nearly as much time as he would have liked with Jason.

He tried his best to make time for him, but there were some days when it was just impossible. There were days when they could spend the afternoon swimming together, sometimes Jason preferred to swim next to Arthur and sometimes he would climb on top of Arthur's back so Arthur could move at top speed, and there were afternoons when Arthur was so drowned in work that he didn't leave his office. There were days when Arthur would sit at the table for an hour after they'd finished their dinner just so he could hear everything Jason had been up to that day and days when Arthur was so wrapped up in an urgent matter that he barely heard a word Jason said. There were days when Arthur would sit next to Jason's bed and tell him bedtime stories about his adventures as Aquaman and there were days when Arthur couldn't stop for the night until Jason had already been asleep for hours.

Arthur wondered if that was why it seemed like Jason grew up so quickly.

If he had been able to spend more time with his son, been a little less wrapped up in his duties as the King of Atlantis and Protector of the Seas, then maybe it wouldn't have seemed like his son had grown from a child to a young man so quickly.

One day Jason was a baby with tiny hands and feet that Arthur liked to tickle, enjoying the way it made his young son giggle and wrap his fingers around Arthur's. The next he was a toddler and kept swimming away from his nannies to sit under Arthur's desk in unannounced games of hide-and-seek. One day he was a child following after the guards and trying to convince Arthur that Mera had told him he could start his weapons training early. The next he was a teenager and Arthur had to sit him down to explain that while mermaids were pretty they were vicious and likely to rip his throat out so he should maybe find someone else to be captivated by. Only a month later, Arthur had to sit him down again to tell him that he couldn't keep skipping his training in favor of visiting the pretty surface boy he'd met.

It happened much too quickly for Arthur's liking, but ultimately his son grew into a man that Arthur was incredibly proud of.

His son was intelligent and driven. He sought out not just the knowledge in Atlantis, but also the knowledge from the surface world. The older he grew the more often Arthur would go looking for him, only for Mera to tell him that Jason had asked permission to spend the day at the light house so he could read something from the library near Arthur's childhood home. When he wanted something, Jason went after it without expecting someone to hand it to him. He didn't shy away from the hard work required to reach some of his goals. Instead he threw himself into it completely.

And Jason had grown up kind. Arthur watched as he went from wanting to be a warrior because it was a profession of glory and something that was 'cool' to wanting to be a warrior because he loved their people and wanted to protect them. He watched as Jason started spending more of his time out of the castle in order to help the people of the city. Arthur watched as Jason went from being a bored teenager in the meetings he attended to being an outspoken young adult with ideas about how to improve their Kingdom.

Arthur planned on living a long time yet, but the more his son grew the more obvious it became that Atlantis would be in good hands when he was gone.

* * *

"Dad," Jason said as he stepped into Arthur's office, immediately drawing Arthur's attention away from work on his desk. "I was told you wanted to see me once I got back to the palace."

Jason was dressed in the dark green uniform of Atlantis' military. The gold embellishments emphasized the strong lines of his arms and chest. Now an adult, he'd grown to be Arthur's height and his chest had broadened out similarly. His red hair was tousled and messy, but he was holding his helmet his under his arm so Arthur assumed the mess was because he'd only just taken it off.

One of the best cadets in his class, Jason had been placed on Artifact duty almost immediately after his graduation. He spent his days watching over Atlantis' strongest artifacts, items which held so much power they could destroy not just Atlantis but the world as a whole if in the wrong hands. It was a high honor and one that Jason had been given only because he had earned it. It was the kind of job that was far to important to entrust to someone just because they were a prince. 

"Yes," Arthur said. He opened one of the drawers in his desk, pulling out a large square box and setting it on the table between them. "I wanted to give this to you."

Jason's eyebrows knitted together, but he didn't express his confusion.

Instead he just stepped forward, setting the helmet down on the chair across from Arthur's desk before leaning forward to open the box.

"I don't understand," Jason said when he saw what sat inside. He looked away from it, looking up at Arthur instead. "Why do I need a new crown? Did something happen to mine?"

"Nothing happened to it, but yours is a crown for a prince," Arthur said. He reached forward, using a delicate touch to grab the crown from the box. It was a thin gold circulate with a large A in the center that would rest against Jason's forehead, similar to Arthur's, but there was a lining of dark green gems that gave the impression that the A was a bright, royal green when looked at from a certain angle. He reached forward to set the crown on Jason's head, something Jason ducked down for even despite his confusion. "Your mother and I thought it was time to give you one designed for a King."

"A King?"

Hearing the note of distress in Jason's voice, Arthur assured him, "There's nothing wrong with your mother or I."

"Then why do I need a new crown?"

"The Justice League has asked me to assist with some matters that will keep me on the surface a bit longer than before. I've decided to accept," Arthur explained. He waited until Jason was focused on him, their eyes meeting, before he said, "Atlantis will need a ruler while I'm gone."

Jason began, "But Mom-"

"Your mother is an excellent ruler," Arthur told him. Half the time Arthur was convinced that Mera was a better ruler than he was. "And she's going to be staying to help you, but you're old enough to step up while I'm gone."

"I-" Jason stopped. His hand lifted, coming to rest against the crown nestled against his red locks. He seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. Instead, he asked, "Are you sure I'm ready for this?"

"We wouldn't be having this conversation if you weren't ready. I would never hand you a kingdom that I thought you weren't ready to rule."

* * *

Arthur hadn't been lying when he told Jason that he wouldn't have given him Atlantis if he didn't think he was ready for it, but Arthur hadn't been certain how much help he would need as he adjusted. Since reaching adulthood Jason had been given more and more responsibility as Atlantis' crown prince, but his previous responsibilities were nothing like the responsibilities that came with being King of Atlantis. It was why Mera had stayed behind instead of coming to the surface with Arthur, so that Jason would have someone to rely on in the moments when he floundered under the new expectations.

Arthur kept in contact with Mera, she used her magic to allow them to communicate through any small pool of water. For the first few weeks of Arthur's absence from Atlantis, she told him how their son was struggling. There were so many aspects of ruling that he had little to no experience with and he was struggling to learn how to handle them. By the time Arthur had been gone for two months, though, Jason had found his footing. By the time he'd been gone for three, Jason was confident in his position and ruling with much less hesitance than he had been in the early days.

Atlantis thrived under Jason's rule just as it thrived under Mera and Arthur's.

Arthur had already known that Jason would be an excellent King, but there was something reassuring about actually seeing Jason thrive in the position the way Arthur knew he could.

When the Justice League was called to Atlantis to help deal with a threat that had spread down to it from the surface and Arthur walked into the throne room to see Jason standing in front of his throne, Arthur was filled with a burst of incredible pride.

It would be many, many years before Arthur was ready to give Atlantis to Jason permanently but Arthur had no doubt that his son would go down in Atlantis' history as one of it's greatest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello! I know some of you were in favor of seeing all of Diana's first, but I've decided to rotate so that we could see Jason in the same part of his life in a lot of different ways before we moved on to the next section. Also...I was really excited to write this chapter and what's going to be chapter three. Hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter regardless of it not including Diana.
> 
> 2) Mera and Arthur are a favorite couple of mine. I could've made Jason a second son and explored the tragedy of their first child dying, but I wanted to explore how their relationship would have been strengthened and progressed if that rift hadn't ever formed.
> 
> 3) Things I found myself wondering when writing this chapter: how do Atlantean's poop? Do they breast feed and how would that work? What about cooking?
> 
> 4) Red haired Jason wasn't the original intention for Atlantis!Jason, but it made more sense then black haired Jason with a blonde father and red haired mother. Also went with Arthur being half human because that's honestly a much better story than his mother being impregnated by some creepy wizard dude in her dreams.
> 
> 5) So you might notice that in the Diana chapter, it ended still in the 40s and there's no JL yet whereas this chapter ends with the JL beginning. The timeline changes depending on what the important moments in that Jason's life are and will fluctuate all throughout the story.
> 
> 6) I feel like I lost steam at the end of this?? Sorry about that.


	3. A Boy Lost in Time I

"Ted."

"Mary, I promise I am working on those contracts," Ted said. He was sitting at his desk, shirt sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. "I'm literally reading them as I speak."

Mary, his secretary, had spent the entire morning routinely popping in to remind him that he needed to finish looking at these contracts today, so he didn't bother looking up from the paperwork when she entered the room.

"It's not about the paperwork.

"Mm?"

Given how she'd been on him about it, Ted was a little surprised that she was drawing his attention away from it. When he looked up at her, he realized immediately just how important whatever was going on must have been.

Mary was a generally a happy person. She was bright and easy going. Ted had hired her initially because she had reminded him a little bit of Booster. Right now, however, her usual smile had been wiped off her lips. In place of it was an expression that straddled a strange middle ground between concerned and confused.

"What's wrong?" Ted asked, already pushing himself up to his feet.

"Michael is outside waiting for you," Mary said.

"Is he okay?" Ted questioned, feeling confusion start to mix with his concern.

Michael visiting the office wasn't too unusual, but he usually just materialized inside of it. On the occasions that he did come through the door, he usually didn't give Mary time to annouce him. He just smiled and waved as he passed, giving her just enough time to either say hello or tell him that Ted was with someone else.

"Ye-" Mary started. She stopped, her mouth closing and her brow furrowing a bit. Instead, she said, "You know what, I'm just going to let you decide that yourself."

Before Ted could ask what that was supposed to mean, Mary had turned and walked out of the room.

His nerves were soothed a bit by Mary's almost yes, but the confusion of the entire thing left him feeling off kilter and kept him from being able to relax completely.

Now that he wasn't focused on his work, Ted could hear them speaking in the other room. Even if Mary hadn't told him that Michael was there, Ted would have known. He knew Michael's voice as well as his own, even when it was just the soft murmur of his voice behind a door.

After a moment, the conversation outside stopped.

When the door opened, Ted found himself staring in shock.

He understood why Mary had been so hesitant to give him a response.

Michael looked fine, physically, but he was holding a baby in his arms. The child was swaddled in a soft, deep red blanket.

"Hey Ted," Michael greeted. He smiled, but it was a little awkward and uncomfortable.

"Michael," Ted said. Forgoing a proper greeting, he asked, "Where did you get a baby?"

"He was sent to me."

"Sent to you?"

Michael nodded. He looked down at the child in his arms. His smile turned into something more serious, his lips pressed in a line and something sad flickering in his eyes. "Someone sent him to me in a time sphere."

Michael kept most things about the future under a tight lock, but he trusted Ted and he'd been told a bit more. Ted thought now about what Michael had told him. He thought about the brutal wars of the future, how Booster Gold had been a trusted hero during some of those, he thought about how the babies parents would have had to have a specific date and time for the sphere or risk him not getting where they intended him to be. He thought about how desperate someone had to be and how much they had to love their child in order to do all of that so that he could live.

"Okay," Ted said. He was still trying to process everything going on, but being best friends with Booster Gold had trained him to know better than to think he knew everything in the universe. "What are you going to do with him?"

Michael looked up at Ted, eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean?"

"Are you keeping him?" Ted asked.

Before Ted could list any of his other options, Michael said, "Of course I am. They sent him to _me_. They asked me to protect him."

"Okay," Ted said.

There were people that would have pushed more, who would have thought Booster wasn't ready for the responsibility of a child and would have pushed him to give the baby to someone who they thought was. Ted knew Michael more than any of those people did, though. He knew what the others thoughts about him and Michael, but he also knew that every prank and joke helped Michael carry the weight of thousands of years on his shoulders. He knew that no matter how he usually acted, Michael was fiercely loyal and caring.

Ted moved around the office, opening his desk up to grab his wallet and keys from the drawer. As he grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, Michael asked, "Uh...Ted? What are you doing?"

"Grabbing my stuff," Ted answered. "If you're keeping him than we've got a lot of shopping to do."

"You don't need to come with me," Michael objected. "I didn't come here for your money. It just...It felt like the kind of thing that I needed to tell you right away."

"I know you didn't come here for my money," Ted said. Ted would have happily spent his money on Michael, he had way too much of it and not nearly enough people in his life to spend it on, but Michael had never asked. At first Michael hadn't needed it since he'd been married to Gladys, but even after being divorced Michael hadn't asked. When things were a little tight Ted would help out, dragging Michael out to meals with him under the guise that he didn't want to eat alone or having Michael come with him when he went shopping and offering to buy him anything that caught his eye, but he didn't want to push. "But having a baby costs a lot of money. That's why baby showers exist." Shrugging his jacket on, Ted looked up at Michael, a smile settling on his lips. "Hey, you know what, just think of _this_  as your baby shower."

There was a long moment before a smile settled on Michael's lips again. "Alright then."

"Let's get going then." As Ted made his way towards Michael, gesturing towards the door with his head. "Hey, was there any thing else in the time sphere? Anything that might tell us what his name is?"

"There wasn't a note or anything, but the blanket is embroidered," Michael answered.

"What's it say?"

"Jason."

* * *

Ted spent the drive to Babies R Us on the phone with Mary, trying to figure out how he could shift his schedule around so that he could help Michael today and tomorrow. He wasn't going to just ditch Michael after that, but he wasn't like Bruce. He didn't have a Lucius Fox to run his company for him when he was busy.

Since Ted had to figure things out with Mary, Michael drove while Ted sat in the backseat with Jason in his arms. He took the opportunity to look a little closer at Jason. His skin was darker, not the unhealthy pale of Ted's or the tanned bronze of Michael's. He was too young to have a full head of hair, but there was some dark fuzz on the top of his head. Ted thought it looked darker than his own, probably black rather than brown. His eyes were a bright blue. Ted couldn't remember if it was true that all babies were born with blue eyes, but he kind of hoped Jason's eyes stayed this color. It reminded him of Michael's. Ted didn't know very much about babies, but he thought that Jason looked a little smaller than the other babies he'd been around. That could have been because Jason was younger than babies Ted had been around or it could have been a product of the time he was fun, possibly malnutrition on his mother's part. He'd have to help Michael find a predication so they could figure some of that out.

They spent most of that afternoon at the store. They picked out everything they thought off of the top of their head. If they went a little out of control with the superhero theme, buying a mostly black playpen with Justice League symbols on the bottom along with a set of Wonder Woman themed bottles and a black Batman themed high chair along with numerous other superhero themed items, then no one who knew them would really blame them. They'd probably just laugh at them a little more than usual. After they'd gotten everything they could think of, they approached one of the employees for help with what they might have forgotten. If the woman they ended up speaking to was surprised that two men were shopping by themselves for everything a baby would need, then she did a good job hiding it.

When they had finished they shoved what they could into Ted's car and arranged for the rest of it to be sent to Booster's apartment. Getting the car seat secured ended up taking more time than it should've given that Ted was a genius, but eventually they got that settled as well. They strapped Jason into it and then Ted took the wheel while Booster took the passengers seat. If both of them kept checking on Jason, Michael subtly turning around and Ted looking up into the mirror, than neither of them called the other on it.

Ted was planning on staying with Michael for a few days, lending a helping hand while Michael got settled in, so they made a stop at Ted's apartment so that he could pack some clothes and other essentials then they made their way to Michael's apartment.

The first thing they set up when they got to the apartment was the playpen, Michael had wanted to start with the crib but Ted had cautioned him with horror stories about how bad crib building could be, and then settled Jason down in it with one of the stuffed animals they'd bought him, a small robin. They weren't sure how old Jason was, but he was apparently young enough that he still spent most of his time sleeping.

The rest of the evening was sort of a blur. Most of the time they were putting together furniture, one of them working on one thing while the other worked on another. There'd been a few clashes when a screw from one thing got too close to the screws for another, but mostly the time passed with their usual easy banter. The first time Jason woke up, they used Ted's phone to google how to change a diaper and how to make a bottle. The diaper change had been a bit of a struggle and Michael had washed his hands for five minutes afterwards, but they'd gotten it done and Ted was confident that future ones would go better. They ordered pizza after they finished with the last of the furniture, then they got started on the rest of what they'd bought. Bottles were shoved into cabinets, clothes into the small dresser they'd bought just for Jason, toys were crammed into a toy chest.

Ted wasn't entirely sure what time it was when they finally went to sleep, but they both ended up passed out on the living room floor.

The first time Jason woke up that night it was Michael who took care of him.

The second time, it was Ted. 

* * *

Ted was lying stomach down on the blanket in the middle of the apartment floor with Jason, blowing on the baby's face and enjoying the way it made Jason giggle.

They'd learned from the pediatrician a few weeks ago that Jason was around five months old. Ted had been right when he'd speculated that Jason was tinier than he should have been, but the doctor hadn't been that concerned about it. He'd believed it was likely that Jason would catch up quickly as long as he had proper nourishment and care now. Ted was hoping that was true. Jason was old enough that they would have started tummy time with him anyway, but the doctor had put a particular stress on it. Jason's malnourishment would likely clear up as long as he was properly taken care of now, but it was important that they do things to help him build up his muscles.

Ted had all but moved into Michael's apartment over the past few weeks, only going to his own place when he needed more clothes. Even those trips were getting less and less frequent as more of Ted's clothes migrated into Booster's dresser. They'd set Jason up in Booster's spare bedroom, so Ted had ended up sleeping in Booster's room with him. They'd shared a bed plenty of times before and doing it now had seemed natural.

Since Ted was there every evening, tummy time had become something that Ted did with Jason when he got home from work. Michael spent most of the day with Jason, he had more than enough money saved up to take a break from his modeling career while he adjusted to taking care of Jason, while Ted was working. So when Ted got home, he got to spend some quality time rolling around the floor with Jason while Booster went to the gym for a while.

It might have been a little strange that Ted had uprooted his life the way he had just because Booster had acquired a baby, but to Ted it had been easy and natural. For the past ten years of his life, practically since the moment they met, it had been Booster Gold-and-Blue Beetle. It had been Michael Carter-and-Ted Kord. There was no one who understood Ted as well as Michael did and no one who understood Michael as well as Ted did. In the past decade there hadn't been a single thing that they did without the other with them in some way. Even solo missions were done with the knowledge that the other would be there the very second they asked, that the second Ted told Michael something was wrong Booster would drop everything and rush to his side.

"What's up Jaybird?" Ted said, a large smile on his face. There was a gleeful smile on the baby's face as he smacked his palms against his own cheeks, right where Ted had been blowing a moment earlier. "Did that tickle?" He leaned in again, blowing gently against Jason's cheek. Jason let out another giggle shriek, patting his hands against his face again.

"I love you."

Ted looked over his shoulder, his surprise at Booster being back keeping the words from fully registering. Michael was standing in the entryway wearing a loose yellow Adidas tank top, his signing with them had resulted in Bea signing with Nike just to be contrary and there was a whole competition that Ted was sure was still going on despite Booster taking a break from work, and a pair of workout shows that clung to his thighs. His hair was wet, Ted hoped it was from showering and not sweat, and stuck to his forehead.

Then the words registered and Ted noticed other things. He saw the way Michael's eyes were opened a little wider than normal and locked right on him. He saw the way Michael's mouth was hanging open, just a little bit. He saw the way that despite his obvious shock, Michael's expression was mostly soft and filled with awe.

The look shook Ted down to his core. Not because he was surprised by Michael loving him or because he didn't feel the same way, but because Michael was looking at him as though loving Ted was something amazing, like _Ted_  was something to be cherished.

"I love you too," Ted said. Before either of them could say something else, something smacked against Ted's face. He blinked, a little confused, then looked over to see that Jason had his hand out stretched towards him. Realizing that Jason had slapped him, probably upset that Ted wasn't giving him his attention, Ted let out a soft laugh. He shifted so he could grab Jason's wrist, grip light, and leaned in to pepper Jason's palm with kisses. "I'm sorry Jaybird. I love you too."

* * *

Being in a relationship, and after a long conversation once they'd gotten Jason to bed Ted was certain that they were in a relationship, didn't change much between Ted and Michael. The thing was that no matter how much they'd argued against the assumptions, there was a _reason_  why so many people had assumed they were already in a relationship. It wasn't just because their love for each other was so obvious, but because they largely acted like they had already acted on it.

Even the kissing wasn't strictly speaking entirely new. If they pulled something particularly ridiculous off, Booster would get so excited that he'd put his hands on either side of Ted's face and reel him in for a kiss. Sometimes Booster would go for Ted's forehead, but more often then not Booster ended slamming their lips together. And Ted had always been a handsy drunk, especially when he was drinking with people who he loved and trusted. Booster had never pushed him away the way Guy did or turned his head to keep Ted from reaching his lips the way Bea or Tora did. He had always just laughed and let Ted peck kisses wherever he felt like it, usually just one against Booster's lips or against Booster's jaw before he decided lying in Booster's lap for a nap was a better option.

Sex _was_  new, but they weren't exactly having a whole lot of that with Jason around. Even once Jason started sleeping through the night, they were usually too exhausted at the end of the night to do anything other than collapse into bed together. Ted was absolutely not looking forward to Jason getting old enough to run or walk around because as the months went by and Jason learned how to crawl, Ted found himself spending a good deal of time steering the baby away from something that he could hurt himself on or trying to find him when he'd crawled away while Ted had been looking somewhere else.

As they settled in and adjusted to the changes in their lives, figuring out their relationship and how to take care of their son, Ted's life settled into a new routine.

Ted's mornings were usually quiet. He left early enough for Kord Industries that Michael and Jason were rarely awake when he left. He would grab himself a cup of coffee and some breakfast. When he'd finished eating and gotten ready for the day, Ted would wake Michael up just long enough to let him know he was leaving and exchange a kiss good morning kiss. He would sneak into Jason's room afterwards, careful to be quiet and avoid waking Jason up, and press a kiss against his sleeping son's forehead. Afternoons were spent at Kord Industries, but he made sure to take a break at least once an afternoon to call Booster and check up on the two of them. Once a week, usually on Wednesday, Booster would bring Jason and they'd have lunch together in Ted's office or go out to one of the restaurants near the building. When Ted came home in the evening, he would sit down in the living room and play with Jason for a while. Michael was usually around long enough for them to chat about their days a bit, then he'd kiss both of them goodbye and go out to do something so Ted could have time alone with Jason. When Michael got back, they'd sit Jason down in his playpen while they cooked dinner together. They'd eat, get Jason bathed for the night, and then get him settled in his crib. The two of them would spend the rest of the night together, laughing and trading kisses while playing video games or curling up together to watch a movie or any other thing they could do to spend time with each other.

Things were different then they had been before, but it was a good kind of difference.

It was the kind of difference that made Ted happier than he'd ever been before.

* * *

"We're here!"

Ted was watching Guy play with Jason. The Lantern was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Jason in his lap, one arm around Jason's stomach to keep him from falling forward when he got too excited and the other outstretched as he projected a series of tiny constructs in front of them. Right now, there was a large green mouse chasing a bunch of tiny army men around.

He looked up just in time for Bea and Tora to come into the apartment's living room. Tora held a singular present wrapped in metallic blue and silver paper while Bea had her arms filled with presents wrapped in bright green.

"Hi guys," Ted greeted, smile growing when he saw them.

"Hello Ted," Tora returned, smiling back at him.

"Ted!" Bea exclaimed. "Good! Come grab these from me so that I can say hi to the birthday boy!"  
  
"Sure, sure." Ted pushed himself up to his feet, making his way across the room.

As soon as he was near enough, Bea shoved the stack of presents in his arms and rushed forward. She scooped Jason out of Guy's lap without so much as a second of hesitation.

"Bee-bee!" Jason exclaimed, his smile growing impossibly large for his tiny face.

"Hello, Jay Jay," Bea answered, a smile of her own settling on her lips as she cradling Jason to her chest. "Happy birthday!"

"Birfday!" Jason repeated excitedly. Ted was fairly certain that Jason didn't know what the word meant, but he'd started associating it with the excited tone that Ted and Michael used when talking about it and picked up that it was a good thing. It didn't hurt that he kept getting told 'Happy Birthday' as his favorite people beside his parents arrived.

They hadn't known exactly what Jason's birthday was, but since he'd been five months when they'd first taken to him the doctors they'd guessed that it was sometime in August. They ended up choosing August 16th since it was in the middle of the month. And according to that arbitrarily chosen date, today was Jason's first birthday.

Bea had found out when Jason was around eight months and Michael had started taking modeling again, because Jason was too young for Kord Industries babysitting program and they'd needed reliable babysitter while Ted was at work and Bea knew enough female models that she was sure to know _someone_  that had used a babysitter before. The gossip chain had kicked in almost as soon as Bea found out. It was a little shorter without Booster and Ted in it, but soon enough everyone in the JLI knew. From there it spread quickly out to the Justice League and then to a few other affiliated superheroes.

Despite having only known about him for a few months, Ted and Michael's closest friends were already wrapped around Jason's finger and when they'd found out about Jason's birthday they'd been insistent on there being a party so they could spoil him. Ted didn't really see the point in a party for a one year old, but they were all so scattered now days that Ted welcomed the opportunity to be in the same place as the others.

"Ted," Tora said, "where's Michael?"

"He ran out to get the cake," Ted told her. They'd ordered something chocolate, large enough that they'd probably have some left overs but not large enough that they'd have left over cake in the apartment for a week, with some cream and strawberries on the top. They'd thought about getting a sesame street character or something on the cake, but ultimately agreed not to since Jason was only twelve months and definitely not going to remember the event.

"You didn't set it up for you to pick it up earlier?" Bea asked, looking away from Jason to glance over at Ted.

"We did," Ted said. His lips twitched up, amused, "You're half an hour early, Bea."

"Yes, well," Bea said, shrugging, "Guy was here first."

"I just came back from a month in space," Guy said, joining the conversation for the first time. "I can't be expected to adjust to earth time right away."

"You and Tora went on a date last weekend," Bea said. "It's not as though you touched ground and immediately came over here."

"Yeah, well, fuck you."

"Guy!" Tora said. "Jason!"

"Ra-Ra!" Jason said, Tora's call of his name apparently alerting him to the fact that Bea hadn't come alone. Bea shifted, maneuvering Jason so that he could see Tora. Immediately he held his arms out for her, repeating happily, "Ra-Ra! Ra-Ra!"

"Hello, little one," Tora said.

"Here, Tora," Ted said. "Put your present on top of Bea's. It'll give you a free hand."

"Thank you," Tora said, flashing Ted another small smile. She set the present on top of Bea's pile, then stepped towards Jason and Bea. When she was close enough, she reached out for Jason who latched onto one of her fingers immediately. "I hope you've been having a good birthday."

Ted needed to take the presents out to the kitchen, the things that he and Michael had gotten for Guy as well as the present Guy had brought with him were out there on the counter, but before he left he took a moment to look over the people in his living room.

He'd had a lot of teammates over the years and there were plenty of them that were important to him, there were a few others that they'd invited to the party that would probably show up once they were a little closer to the actual start time, but Tora, Bea, and Guy were the most important people in his life after Michael, and now Jason.

Their team had had its ups and downs, but at the end of the day they weren't just friends - they were family. 

* * *

For the first few months that they had Jason, every day had dragged on. Ted adored his son, but Jason had started sleeping through the night a little later then most babies, most likely to do the chance in his environment, and the exhaustion that came with that had made each day feel like it was 75 hours instead of 24. Not in the way that Ted got so much work done that it felt like he'd accomplished far too much for just one day to have passed, but in the way that Ted was sleeping so little that the days blurred together and he was having a hard time remembering what day it was without his secretary reminding him.

As long as those days had been, Ted would have happily gone back to them because the next couple of years passed far too quickly.

Ted went from not being able to sleep because Jason wasn't sleeping through the night to spending his nights running after a toddler that wouldn't keep still. Jason was an energetic toddler, running around and rarely keeping still. The second he learned how to walk he was toddling around the house, running away from Michael and Ted every time they said the word 'bath' or 'bed.' Kord Industries ended up putting out a line of bath crayons because letting Jason draw was one of the few ways to get Jason in the bath without complaining but Michael and Ted both got tired of spending half an hour scrubbing the walls down after bath time.

Jason had been a babbler as a baby, so Ted wasn't terribly surprised when Jason turned into a rambler once his speech improved. When Jason was younger, dinner had been a time for Michael and Ted to talk about their days. As he learned how to talk, however, Jason took over telling Ted what he and Michael, or he and Jasmine if he'd been with the babysitter that day, had done. Ted would give Jason is full attention, smiling and encouraging Jason to tell him more about the dogs they'd seen when they'd gone to the park. Jason was a dramatic storyteller and there was rarely a night when his stories weren't filled with plenty of over exaggerations.

Matching his love for telling stories was Jason's love for hearing them. He'd fight about getting to bed, but once he was in bed Jason would beg for story after story. Sometimes he wanted to be read a story from one of his storybooks, and the older Jason grew the more their book collection grew as their family learned that storybooks were Jason's favorite present, and sometimes he wanted to hear stories about Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. They were careful with which stories they told since there were plenty of stories that weren't appropriate for a toddler, but they told him the stories that they knew he would enjoy. Stories which involved Green Lantern, Fire, and Ice were his absolute favorite. They'd never explicitly told Jason that they were Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, or that his other favorite superheroes were Guy, Bea, and Tora. But Jason's enthusiasm had led Ted to believe that Jason had figured it out between the stories and the way he always got dropped off with Mary, who had become not just Ted's secretary but Jason's favorite aunt outside of Bea and Tora, when there was a crisis that required the entire Justice League. They hadn't been making it that difficult to figure out and Ted thought that Jason was pretty intelligent.

Jason's toddler years passed quickly, though, and before Ted knew it his son was a kindergartner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello! Thank you all for the comments on Arthur's first section and I hope you enjoy this one. Beetle and Booster are a bit more obscure, but boy do I love them with all my heart and soul.
> 
> 2) I know I initially had this labeled as a JayKyle, but I'm wondering if you guys would mind if I did some others as well? I'm thinking two JayKyle, two JayTim, one JaySteph, and one that's completely gen outside of Jason's parents in that section.
> 
> 3) Also we are very obviously stretching out some timelines for this one. I've put Superbuddies and JLA happening before this, but its going to be YEARS in this particular story before we move on to the next...big...thing....
> 
> 4) #Toradeservedbetterthanshegot
> 
> 5) I feel like I lost it a bit at the end of this??


	4. Twin Arrows I

"Hello," chirped the girl behind the concession stand. She was wearing a bright orange volunteer shirt and had a large smile on her lips. She looked young, so Oliver assumed she probably wasn't the mother of any of the contestants but rather a sister or girlfriend. Possibly the daughter of someone running the show. "What can I get for you?"

"Can we get two cokes, a bag of popcorn, a thing of nachos, and two pretzels?"

"Oh and two ring pops, one green and one blue please, and a pack of spearmint gum."

Oliver let out a low, surprised whistle.

The two boys in front of him that had placed the order glanced behind them, looking at Oliver.

They were similar in appearance, so much so that Oliver was inclined to think they were brothers if not twins. Both boys had the same bright, carrot red hair. One of them wore it longer, curling around his ears, but the other had his hair cut shorter, longer than a buzz-cut but looking like he'd probably had one a while ago. The boy with the longer hair had bright blue eyes while the other had eyes that were a deep green. Both of them were tall for teenagers, but they were built differently. The boy with the shorter hair was leaner while the other seemed larger and more overtly muscular. Both had a definition in their arms that made Oliver think they were here as competitors.

'Here' was an archery competition happening on the Navajo reservation. As a public figure with a notable interest in archery, Oliver had asked to come by the event. Most of the competition involved target shooting so there wasn't much for Oliver to do, but they'd asked him to commentate that and help judge the trick shot competition. Oliver genuinely enjoyed archery outside of what he did as Green Arrow, so he'd been more than happy to agree.

Neither of the two boys in front of him looked like they were from the reservation, though. They weren't pale, but the darker tone of their skin was obviously from spending so much time in the sun rather than natural. Oliver found that a little curious. Archery attached plenty of different types of people, but this competition was overwhelmingly filled with entries from the reservation and other others nearby.

"What are you whistling about?" the boy with the longer hair asked. There was something slightly confrontational in his tone. Oliver might have been offended, but the other boy made a face that made it clear that confrontational was probably his companions default setting.

"That's a lot of junk food. It's not very good for an athletes body, especially not in the middle of a competition," Oliver said. He glanced over the boys again. The muscles in their arms were well worked, making it look like they had spent a lot of time training. But he supposed it was possible to spend a lot of time training and still not be good enough for a competition. "Unless you two are already finished competing?" The boy snorted. His friend's lips turned up in a small amused smile. Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Something funny about that?"

"Yes," said the leaner of the two.

The other said, "There's absolutely no way that Roy and I would be done yet considering that one of us is taking that trophy home."

"That's rather arrogant."

"It's not arrogant if it's the truth," said the other boy. Oliver thought his name might have been Roy based on what the other had said. "No one here is at a level even close to where Jason and I are."

Oliver hummed. "You sound very sure about that."

"I am," Roy said. "They don't care about it enough."

"You two do?"

"More than the rest of them do anyway," Jason said.

Before Oliver could continue the conversation, the girl behind the concession stand let out a nervous, "Um... Your stuff is all ready."

Roy turned away from Oliver. "Oh. Thanks. How much do we owe you?" Jason stared at Oliver for another moment, watching him as Roy and the girl spoke quietly about prices, before Roy nudged him with his elbow. Jason turned, reaching forward to start sweeping their order into his arms. "Come on, Jay. Let's go find some place to scarf this down before we have to report for the next round."

"Alright," Jason agreed.

As they moved to step away, Oliver spoke again, asking, "Hey, what are your names?"

Jason glanced at him. "Why do you ask?"

"You said one of you were going to win," Oliver said. The boys were punks, but Oliver was amused and a little charmed by them. They didn't necessary seem like bad kids, just confident ones. "I want to see if one of you really does."

The boys exchanged a lot before Roy piped up, "Roy Harper and Jason Todd."

"What division?" Oliver asked.

"Fourteen to eighteen years old," Jason said.

"Alright," Oliver said, nodding as he tucked the information away. "Good luck. I'll be watching."

"We don't need luck," Roy said. "But thanks for it anyway."

* * *

Oliver learned later that afternoon that the boys had a reason to be as confident as they were. He figured that they had at least some talent, because while confidence could be false there was a certainty to Jason and Roy's that only existed in those who deserved it, but they turned out to be much more than Oliver initially anticipated.

Roy and Jason were, as they had said, by far the most talented in the competition. Roy held down first while Jason was in second. Jason was strong, but sometimes that strength and his impatience worked against him. Roy was a little weaker in the arms, but he had more patience and tended not to slip the way Jason occasionally did.

They were both excellent archers, though.

They were so good that by the time they had moved onto the final target, the only way the boy in third place was going to catch up to them was if Jason and Roy both completely botched their shots.

So when Jason and Roy did exactly that despite their strong performances, Oliver was instantly suspicious. He'd watched the boys all afternoon and there was virtually no chance of them missing the target as completely as they did. The boys clearly agreed, because when Oliver caught up with them he found that they had already launched their own investigation.

By the end of the day they had figured out that the boy in third place had used some magnetic device to pull the arrows if his competitors off course, Roy and Jason had the first and second place trophies they deserved, and Oliver had two sidekicks despite the fact that he hadn't even been looking for one. Oliver was worried about having to watch both of them at once. The boys had argued that having both of them wasn't going to be a problem, but Oliver kept his foot down and eventually they decided to share the name 'Speedy' while taking turns going on patrol with Oliver.

Over the months, Oliver learned more about the boys.

At first it was things that had to do with their role as his sidekick. He learned that Roy's accuracy with his bow could be transferred to virtually any other target based weapon. He picked up firearms and throwing weapons quickly, fumbling only until Oliver explained to him how to handle them properly. He learned that Jason excelled with his fists.When Oliver started teaching them martial arts, Jason took to them with unrepentant glee and practiced them constantly. He loved his bow, but Jason wasn't afraid to drop it and get in a scuffle when he needed to.

Time passed. Spending time with the boys led to him learning more personal things about them. He learned that the boys were brothers, but not by blood. They had been raised on the reservation together, but neither of them had enough Navajo blood in them for it to count for anything. Roy's father had been a forest ranger that lost his life saving members of the tribe when the reservation was ravaged by a fire. Brave Bow, a medicine man and the man the boys called 'grandfather', had taken Roy in when they found out that the man who had given his life saving them had left behind a two year old with no other family to speak of. Jason had come along four years after Roy, when they were both eight. His father was a criminal, his mother a drug addict, and he'd been tossed around by Gotham social services until they found Brave Bow who was a distant relative of his father. Brave Bow had agreed to take Jason in. The boys had made fast friends, brothers, of each other and they'd spent the last eight years of their lives attached at the hip. The boys weren't exactly outcasts, but there are had always been a sense of 'other' and as such they were pretty much each other's only friends. They had gotten so good at archery because they spent most of their time practicing with each other for lack of anything else to do.

He learned more about the boys outside of their background and their relationship with each other. He learned that both of them were absolutely brilliant in their own ways. Roy was could give every member of Queen Industries R&D team a run for their money. Metal and wire was a puzzle to him, something to piece together until his creation matched the picture in his brain. Jason was less inclined towards engineering, but he absorbed stories as if they water. He read every book in his path and pulled quotes out his memory like no one else Oliver had ever met. He learned that Roy liked to tell stupid jokes and had a collection of trucker hats larger than any actual trucker. He learned that Jason could speak nearly as many languages as he could, more when they counted the ones that Jason just knew bits and pieces of, and that he was possibly the most dramatic person that Oliver had ever met, which was saying something given some of the personalities in the Justice League.

Time rolled on and the boys became something more to Oliver than just sidekicks. He saw them as his sons.

For the first time in his life, Oliver found himself jealous of Bruce Wayne. Because Dick lived with Bruce all the time. When Bruce had a bad night, when he was woken up by memories of his son being hurt or nightmares of his son being dead, he could leave his room and check on Dick, could reassure himself that his son was still there. Oliver didn't have that. Jason and Roy stayed with Oliver occasionally, but they still lived with their grandfather. When Oliver woke up panicked about his sons' safety, he had no choice but to lay there, taking deep breaths and waiting until it was early enough that the boys were awake for school and he could send them a text without it being odd.

Oliver hated that.

So Oliver wasn't exactly happy when Broken Bow died, a little under two years after Oliver met the boys, but Oliver would have been lying if he said he wasn't a little relieved that his death meant he got to have his sons closer to him. 

* * *

"Jason," Oliver hissed, "so help me god kid, if you don't lift your damn end of this-"

"I am!" Jason said, insistent and sounding just as irritated as Oliver felt.

"You are not," Oliver said. "You're watching Roy go buy with your books so you can yell at him if he slips."

It had been two weeks since Broken Bow had died. The boys had been staying with Oliver the entire time, but they hadn't had the energy to pack and move before. They were still grieving for their grandfather, but the two of them had decided they were ready to go back to the house and pack. Oliver had been worried at first, because two weeks wasn't a lot of time, but the boys had gone through with it. Oliver had helped them pack their things, listening quietly as the two of them told stories about the man they had lost. They'd left most of their grandfather's things since the boys had been left almost everything and neither of them were ready to go through it yet. Oliver had promised to hire someone to go in and box those things up for them, sending it to storage until Jason and Roy were ready to go through it themselves.

Now the three of them were in the living room of Oliver's apartment, moving the boys' things into Oliver's penthouse. Oliver had gotten the boys new beds since they had been sleeping on twins before, needing small beds since they shared a room. There were enough rooms in the pent house for each of them to have their own room, so Oliver had bought them each a queen sized mattress and a frame.

Jason and Oliver were in the process of moving the frames into the rooms, starting with Jason's which was a large heavy wooden thing with drawers for some of his books, while Roy brought up boxes.

Oliver had thought that moving all of the stuff themselves would be a good way to spend some time together, but he was really starting to regret believing that a fifteen year old was actually going to help him move furniture instead of expecting him to get distracted.

"Of course I'm watching him," Jason said. "I need to know if he drops my books so that I can kill him."

"Wow," Roy said. He was walking by, one of the heavy boxes filled with Jason's books in his arms since Jason insisted that they couldn't just leave them out where anyone could snatch them up. Oliver hadn't bothered pointing out that no one in Oliver's neighborhood was going to steal books from his car. He knew that saying that wouldn't change what Jason had experienced when he was living with his birth mother. "You're going to kill your only brother over a box of books?"

"Brothers are easy to replace," Jason dismissed.

"And the books aren't?" Oliver asked, shifting so he could get a better hold on the end he was carrying.

"Exactly."

Oliver laughed a little bit. Despite Jason's words he knew that while education was high on Jason's priority list, his family was even higher. "Alright."

"Not alright," Roy objected. "Ollie! You can't just let him threaten me!"

"As long as you don't drop the books there won't be a problem," Oliver said. He shifted again, moving so he could lean some of the weight against Jason. Not a lot, but enough to catch the teen's attention. "Alright, come on Jay. Let's get this thing moved or you won't have anywhere to put all of your books."

"I have bookshelves," Jason objected. But he adjusted his grip so that he was holding the frame more firmly. When Oliver was sure he had it, he took a step forward. Jason shuffled backwards as Oliver pressed forward.

"You have more books than you have room on the shelves for," Roy said. He walked past them, making his way towards the hallway that contained the bedrooms. He added, "I'll just set this box down on the other side of Jason's door so that you two don't trip over it and Jason can move his furniture without worrying about the boxes."

"Good plan," Oliver agreed. "Do the same with your boxes when you grab them, okay? You and I will grab your bed frame after Jason and I finish putting his together."

* * *

The rest of that afternoon was spent lugging boxes around and setting furniture up. Once all of the boxes had been taken out of the car and the boys had all of their furniture put together in their rooms, Oliver left them to unpack while he went to his office. He wanted to spend time with the boys later that night. He knew they had adjusted to staying at his penthouse, but staying somewhere and committing to some place becoming your new home were two different things. There were a few things he needed to get done for Queen Industries before he committed to spending the night relaxing with the boys.

Shortly before six Dinah showed up with three pizza boxes, two bags of breadsticks, and a two liter of soda. Oliver had still been in the office when Dinah arrived, but she had let herself in with her own key and drawn all of them into the living room by calling out that she'd brought food with her. Oliver had been the last one into the kitchen, probably because he had finished reading the proposal he'd been in the middle of before leaving the room whereas Jason and Roy had probably been all too happy to take a break from packing.

When he got there, he found himself frozen in the doorway for a moment.

He watched as Dinah reached up, grabbing a few dishes from the cupboards and setting them on the counter. He watched as the boys started asking about what she'd got, even as they opened the boxes to peer inside themselves. He watched as the boys started piling their plates high with pizza, answering the questions Dinah was asking them about their day as they did so.

Oliver had imagined having a family with Dinah before, had honestly imagined it more times than he could count. There was no version of his and Dinah's future that he'd envisioned two red headed trouble makers in, but Oliver found himself thinking that this reality was better than anything he'd ever thought about.

This was the family he'd been gifted and there was nothing in the world that would have convinced Oliver to give them up. 

* * *

"Boys," Oliver called out as he pushed the apartment door open. "I'm back."

"Welcome back," the boys called out.

Oliver slipped out of his shoes and dropped his keys onto the coffee table against the wall. He made his way further into the apartment, stripping his suit jacket off and reaching up so he could tug on the knot of his tie. As he went, he asked, "How was school?"

"Good," Roy said. "Jason signed up to be an even bigger nerd."

"Fuck off," Oliver heard Jason say. The words were accompanied by the sharp sound of skin smacking against skin, probably Jason hitting Roy, and then a quiet 'ouch' from Roy. "You're the one who enjoys math."

"There's nothing wrong with math," Oliver said, because to him it sounded better than telling his son's that even he found Roy's enjoyment of math a little odd. He knew that it was mostly because math was such an integral part of Roy's inventing, but sometimes he'd stumble upon a set of equations that Roy had left somewhere and wonder why the hell his son put himself through that kind of torture.

He'd made it far enough through the house that he was standing in the doorway between the entryway and the living room. Jason and Roy were sitting on one of the couches together. Jason was against the arm of the couch with his feet drawn up so he could rest his textbook against his thighs. Roy was sitting next to him, his legs folded under him and a controller in his hand as he focused on some game he had on the TV.

"What's this about Jason signing up to be a nerd?" Oliver asked.

"I didn't-" Jason began to object.

"Jason signed up for the drama club," Roy said.

"Oh, really?" Oliver said, feeling a small spark of surprise. There was a sort of happy fondness mixed in with it. In the months since Broken Bow's death, the boys had settled in at the penthouse but they didn't seem to be settling in at school as easily. They'd made a few friends, but those seemed to mostly be people that the boys talked to just so they wouldn't be alone at lunch. School acquaintances rather than real friends.

"Yes," Jason said. He wasn't looking at Oliver, instead ducking his head down to look at his book. The tips of his ears were red. Oliver wondered what he was embarrassed about. "They're doing MacBeth for the winter play."

"That sounds right up your alley," Oliver said, thinking about how many of the books on Jason's shelf were versions of Shakespeare plays. "Are you trying out for a part? Or are you working backstage?"

"Trying out."

"For which part? MacBeth?"

"No," Jason said, shaking his head a little in his insistence. "Maybe Duncan or Banquo."

Oliver hummed a little bit. Neither would be big roles, but Jason seemed embarrassed by the whole thing so it wasn't much of a surprise that he didn't want to try for the lead. Finally he said, "Good luck. Let me know when it is as soon as you find out so I can make sure not to schedule any appointments on that day, alright? Dinah will want to make sure she's free that night too."

"I might not even get a part."

Instead of telling Jason how sure he was that he would, because he didn't think that was going to help Jason's embarrassment any, Oliver just waved him off. "Just let me know, alright?"

"...Alright."

Oliver watched him for a moment, a small smile on his face, before he shifted his attention to Roy. "What about you? Anything to report?"

* * *

Oliver had never really thought he would end up as a theater, but that was ended up happening shortly after Jason announced that he'd gotten the part of Banquo.

It happened almost accidentally. Jason had come home from practice one day, staying at the school late enough that Oliver had already been home when Jason arrived, complaining about how the football team had gotten new uniforms while the drama club was being forced to choose between buying materials for new sets or buying costumes instead of using old ones that didn't have any place being in MacBeth.

Oliver hadn't thought about donating to the school before, Jason and Roy had been more comfortable in a public school than a private school so Oliver hadn't needed to go through all of the sucking up that came with the type of school he had gone to, but once he heard Jason's complaining he offered to do so. Jason had tried pushing the offer away, but Oliver had shook his head and told him that he had more than enough money and he couldn't imagine any better use for it than to make sure that Jason and Roy were able to do what made them happy. Jason had grumbled a little longer, but eventually he'd given in. He had thanked Oliver, hesitating a moment before tucking forward to wrap his arms around Oliver in a tight hug. Oliver had returned the hug immediately.

The next day Oliver cleared time out of his schedule so that he could talk to the drama club's adviser personally. He'd expected to just discuss how much the club would need for the production, as well as discuss making a sizable donation for future productions and the general running of the club, but in the end the woman had been so grateful that she insisted Oliver come see the club so that he could understand how much what he was doing meant to them. Somehow that had ended up with Oliver volunteering to take Jason and the entire club out for pizza as a reward for all the hardwork they had been doing.

Things had just kept spiraling from there until Oliver was giving up valuable sleeping time on the weekends to help the students and other parents with some of the bigger things, like putting together and painting sets. He'd gone alone the first few times, but after Dinah heard what he was doing she insisted on coming along as well. The other parents had been on guard the first time he'd shown up, clearly no one had told them that one of the kids in the club was one of Oliver Queen's wards, but Dinah charmed them all instantly. Oliver wasn't even a little surprised.

Oliver only skipped out on helping once, but that was a day when Roy had been participating in a showcase. The whole family had taken the weekend off from supporting Jason in order to support Roy. Oliver had made note of a few things that looked promising, things he could consider bringing into Queen Industries, but he made sure to keep most of his attention on his son. And at the end of the day, he made sure to give Roy a hug and tell him how proud he was of him.

None of it was what Oliver had pictured when he thought about what being a dad was like, but Oliver wasn't particularly bothered by that. He loved his sons. He was going to support them in whatever goals they had and whatever hobbies they picked up, regardless of how much it appealed to him.

All that mattered was that Roy and Jason were doing whatever made them happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Beetle and Boosters section focuses on a younger Jason - and will continue to because that Jason is going to be a child/teen the whole of that story - whereas this story focuses on an older Jason. 
> 
> 2) There's not a whole lot in here about Jason and Roy being Speedy, but for some reason writing soft dad Oliver just felt very right for this first chapter. There will be TONS of hero stuff in the next chapter of this one since I wanna do the Justice League and Titans then. 
> 
> 3) The fourth section is a lot shorter than I'd initially planned - partly because it's radically different than what I had planned - and I'm a little worried it broke the flow a bit? let me know what you think about that and anything else in this chapter that you wanna talk about!


	5. A Boy Made of Love and Will I

"Hey," Hal called, a little out of breath as he weaved his way through the tables in the diner.

Carol was already sitting in a booth, obviously waiting for him. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a bright red hoodie with white polka dots. The sweatshirt was a little more childish than she usually wore, but Hal thought it looked incredibly soft and warm so he couldn't really blame her. Instead of having her dark hair flowing freely around her shoulders as she usually did, Carol had pulled it up into a ponytail.

All together it was a different look than usual, but Hal thought that Carol looked just as beautiful as she always did. Though he knew that being head over heels in love with her made him a little biased on that account.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Hal said as he approached her. Reaching the table, he bent down to press an affectionate kiss against her cheek, before sliding into his side of the booth. He knew that no matter how much she understood, she still found it irritating how often he was late to things like this, so he added, "I am really, really sorry, Care. I promise I got here as quickly as I could."

"It's okay," Carol said. "I understand."

"Are you sure?" Hal asked, because Carol was smiling at him but there was something weak about it.

"Yes," she said, nodding to back up her point. "You weren't even that late this time."

"Ten minutes might not be a record, but it's not great either," Hal said. He reached across the table, a pulse of happiness rushing through him when Carol took his hand. He knew he wasn't the greatest boyfriend. He spent too much time off planet, was late to half their dates and canceled another half. So he was relieved to see that even though something was clearly bothering Carol, she was still willing to hold his hand. "I _am_  sorry."

"I know," Carol said, smile widening just a little bit. It eased some more of the tightness in Hal's chest. She squeezed his hand. "I promise I'm not mad."

Hal hesitated for a moment. There was clearly something off with Carol, but he didn't want to push if it was something she didn't want to talk about. Their jobs, both the ones they did in the day and the ones they did off planet, meant that the time they had together was always limited. Their relationship was one of weekends and stolen nights and snatches of day light hours. Hal didn't want to spend the time they had together angry with each other. He was just very bad at making sure that didn't happen.

Finally, Hal decided on saying, "Alright, you're not mad at me. But is there something else going on?" He hadn't found it unusual when she asked him to have lunch with it since it was something they did fairly often when they had the opportunity, but now that he knew there was something going on he found himself wondering if this was more than just a casual lunch date. Carol was quiet, uncharacteristically hesitant, so Hal added, "If there is and you don't want to talk about it that's fine. But I'm here for you if you _do_  want to talk."

Carol's expression softened, going warm and affection in a way that made Hal's chest warm. He loved Carol more than he had ever loved any other woman in his life and seeing her look at him that way, seeing how much she loved him in return, was something that Hal never got sick of.

"Hal," she said, her voice gentle. As she spoke she reached down, taking something out of her pocket before setting it on the table in front of him. Hal looked down at them, realizing that it was some sort of black and white photo. No, not a photo. A sonogram picture? He'd seen a lot of them in his life, he had five nieces and nephews after all, but it'd been a couple of years. He wondered why Carol had one on her. "I'm pregnant."

Hal's thoughts came to a screeching halt.

He looked up from the photo, meeting her eyes as he breathed out, "You're what?"

"I'm pregnant," Carol repeated.

"We're having a baby?" Hal said. Their relationship existed in stops and starts, but they had been exclusive for almost half a year now. There was no doubt in his mind that if Carol was pregnant the baby had to be his. "I'm going to have a kid?"

"I'm going to have a kid," Carol said. "You're going to have one if you want to."

Hal didn't hesitate to say, "I do."

Hal hadn't thought about having a family, not given the fact that he spent so much of his time flying a plane around the world or flying himself around the galaxy. He loved his brothers, even Jack despite all of his problems with his older brother, and he loved his sisters-in-law and he loved his nieces and nephews. He had always been content with just having them, had always considered the family that he had to be enough for him.

But not having thought about it didn't mean that Hal didn't want it. He had thought about having a family with Carol before, but he'd always dismissed the idea given how busy their schedules were.

As long as Carol wanted it as well, Hal wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to fulfill that dream.

He'd give up his ring before he gave this up.

"Then yes," Carol said. "We're having a baby."

* * *

Carol wasn't very far through her pregnancy so they didn't want to tell a ton of people, but they agreed that Hal should at least tell his brothers and John. Hal had wanted to argue for Barry as well, but he knew that she was only letting him tell John because John needed to know so that they could figure out how to organize their lantern duties given that Hal was going to have a pretty big responsibility that would keep him from leaving the planet for long periods of time.

Hal managed to get his brothers together for coffee a few days after his lunch with Carol. He'd been hoping to have lunch with them, but Jack was a busy guy. Despite all the bad blood between them, Hal wanted to share this huge thing in his life with his older brother and trading lunch for early morning coffee was the least of what he was willing to do to do that. It didn't keep him from asking a hundred questions about his nieces and nephews before he told them, though, because he knew that not getting right to the point would irritate Jack and it was his sworn duty as his little brother to irritate Jack. When Jack finally snapped, asking if Hal really thought that asking him about Helen's dance recital counted as an emergency or if he was just fucking with them, Hal had just shrugged. Before Jack could blow up, Hal told them that he was just covering his bases since he wasn't sure if his and Carol's kid would be into dance recitals or baseball. Jim had recovered from his shock first, reaching out to grab Hal's bicep and smiling widely as he congratulated him. Hal had been worried that Jack wouldn't approve, that Jack would think he wasn't ready for this and that he'd give Hal a lecture on responsibility for getting Carol pregnant, but instead his brother had just smiled at him with something that was almost pride and congratulated him as well.

Hal didn't think he had ever been so happy to have Jack's approval before.

He was a lot less nervous about his conversation with John than he was about his conversation with his brothers. Hal loved his brothers, but nowadays he was a lot closer to John than he was with Jack or even Jim. They might have gotten off to a rocky start, but he and John carried the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders and there was no one else on Earth that understood that feeling. On top of that, they'd spent a lot of time together away from any other human contact with only each other to speak to about home. That fostered a bond between them that was completely unique, but also incredibly strong.

Hal didn't have any doubt that John would be happy for him and willing to work with him so he could be around for his kid.

The two of them met up in Detroit, Hal flying over to John instead of making John come to him. They spent a while walking around the city, sharing stories about the lantern things that they hadn't done together and things that were going on on Oa and in the galaxy as a whole. Hal was excited to tell John, but he wasn't nervous about it so it was easy to wait. It wasn't until the two of them had sat down to share dinner that Hal finally managed to tell John about the baby.

John was just as happy for him as Hal had been anticipating he would be, so after a hug and a congratulations the two of them set about figuring out how to handle their duties given that Hal would need to stay close to earth.

In the end they managed to work it out so that Hal would take care of things deeper in the sector up until Carol had the baby since nothing should keep him away for too long while John would focus on Earth. Once the baby was born they would switch off for a couple of months, giving Hal time to bond with his child and adjust to being a dad before he had to go. Afterwards they would renegotiate, try to figure out a way to balance their partnership back out while still letting Hal spend time with his child.

With things sorted out with John, Hal found himself settling into a routine for the pregnancy.

He would spend a couple of days out in space dealing with lantern business. He loved what he got to do as a lantern, but during the months of Carol's pregnancy he found himself growing more and more eager to get back to Earth.

He would be sorting through a political cluster fuck on a planet on the edges of their sector, but thinking about how Carol had told him she had started feeling the baby and wondering if when he got back he would be able to feel their child kicking as well. He would be in the middle of helping a nearly collapsed civilization in the sector, but thinking about how Carol had scheduled her appointment for a gender reveal and wondering if she would finally let him set up the nursery once they new if they were having a boy or a girl.

Near the end of the pregnancy, he would be on one of the planets in their sector closer to Earth and find it hard to concentrate as he worried if his ring was about to go crazy with a message from John telling him Carol was in labor. John had agreed to stay with Carol when Hal was off planet, but Hal found himself increasingly worried that Carol would go to labor at work or somewhere else where she wouldn't be able to tell John, therefore meaning that Hal wouldn't find out.

In the end, John got so exasperated that he and Hal switched off on their off-planet duties a week early.

Apparently, though, even being on earth wasn't enough to stop Hal from being late to the birth of his child.

* * *

Hal's shoes squeaked as he ran through the hospital room, sprinting down the hallways as fast as he could. A few of the nurses and doctors in the hallway gave him sharp looks, but his panic must have been evident in his face because none of them said anything to him. Or maybe they had just learned that a man sprinting through the maternity ward probably wasn't going to slow down just because they told him too.

There had been an accident that took several pilots out of the call order, so Hal had ended up being called in to fly a short trip from Coast City to Gotham. Hal had been hesitant to take it when they were so close to Carol's due date, but the baby wasn't supposed to come for another week so Carol had insisted that he take one last flight before the baby was born and he spent the next few months firmly grounded.

It was a six hour flight to Gotham before a three hour break and another six hour flight back to Coast City.

It wouldn't have been a problem had Carol not gone into labor an hour into Hal's flight to Gotham. When Hal had finally touched down in Gotham and found out what happened, he'd wanted to just use the ring to fly back quickly but Hal had already locked himself into the flight and there wasn't another pilot they could get on short notice.

He had hoped, maybe a little cruelly, that Carol's labor would last longer than usual and he'd be able to make it back to Coast City before she had the baby.

That didn't end up happening.

Hal had touched down to a message from his older brother, congratulating him on his first son.

"Jack!" Hal shouted when he got sight of his older brother. Carol was supposed to have stayed with Janice and Jack while Hal was gone on his flight. Janice was a stay at home mom, so she'd be around to help Carol if anything happened. Given what had happened, Hal was really glad Carol hadn't been staying with Jim and Sue given that his younger brother and his wife wouldn't have been at the house when she went into labor.

"Don't shout in a hospital," Jack chided him. Before Hal could say anything about how he was absolutely did not care right now, Jack gestured to the door behind him and said, "Go meet your son."

"He's in there?" Hal said, a little surprised. He remembered how the nurses had swept Jim and Jack's children away after their birth so they could clean them up and check them out. He thought that to see his son he would have to go find the nursery after checking on Carol.

"They brought him back a few minutes ago so that Carol could feed him." Jack stepped forward, putting a hand on Hal's shoulder and giving him a light push towards the door. "Go see him. I'm going to call Janice and Jim, alright? I'm sure they'll want to come see the baby now that you're here."

"They waited?"

"We thought he should meet you before the rest of us," Jack said. There was a moment before Jack squeezed Hal's shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Hal. Mom would be too."

With that final note, Jack started walking down the hallway away from him.

Hal watched him for a moment before turning to the door Jack had indicated.

He took a deep breath, because as much as his life had already changed he knew it was going to change so much more once he walked through that door and met his son, before stepping forward.

* * *

Hal's oldest nephew, Jack and Janice's son, was named Jason, but Carol's grandfather had also been named Jason and Carol wanted to honor him so they end up naming their son Jason Peter Jordan. They laugh a little bit at how simple of a name it is, but they also never even consider naming him something else. They love the name as much as they love the boy it belongs to.

And god, does Hal love his son.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he first stepped into Carol's hospital room, but the warmth and love that flooded him when he saw their son in Carol's arms was so unexpected that Hal had actually stumbled a bit.

The feeling had only grown more intense when Carol had passed Jason to him. Having just been fed, Jason had been satisfied enough to drift back to sleep. So Hal stared down at the baby in his arms, eyes drifting shut to sleep, and made a promise to do anything he could to keep this boy safe. Hal was sworn to protect the galaxy from harm, but now Hal found himself thinking that he'd take down every person in the galaxy if that would make his son happy.

In the future, Hal would look back on the day of his son's birth and find that the rest of the day was lost to him. Having come straight to the hospital from the airport, Hal had spent that first day so exhausted that it was hard to remember anything that had happened. He knew that at some point Jack had come into the room to meet his nephew, knew that Janice and Jim had come later, and that Sue brought the kids over later to introduce them to their new cousin. But he didn't remember any specific details from those visits.

Later he would look back on that day and realize that the only things he could really remember were the first time that he'd seen Carol and Jason together and the first time that he held his son himself.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't need me to stay?" Hal asked.

"Yes," Carol said. Hal was relieved to find that she still sounded amused at his questioning. He knew she had to be getting irritated. "I'll be able to handle the next few days just fine, I promise."

The two of them were standing in the entrance of their apartment. Hal was just outside the door, fully dressed for the day, while Carol was just inside the door. She was wearing a pair of fuzzy white pajama pant covered in red polka dots with a black razorback tank. She had Jason up on her hip, the baby wearing a gray onesie that said 'Dad's No. 1 Co-Pilot' in navy lettering.

Jason was a few days over two months old.

Hal was supposed to be going to Oa for lantern business for the first time since he had been born, but Hal was hesitating. He knew that Carol was perfectly capable of taking care of Jason herself, they had both had days where they watched Jason alone so that the other could get a break for a few hours, but there was something about being that far away from Jason for an entire weekend that had Hal's gut churning with worry.

"Are you sure?" Hal asked again. "Because I could just call John and tell him that I need more time before-"

"Hal, go do your job." Carol interrupted. "Jason and I will be fine. We'll still be here when you get back on Monday and we'll all go trick-or-treating on

Hal bit his lip for a moment before nodding. "Okay. Okay."

"Okay," Carol said, amusement filling her voice again. "Do you want to give Jay a goodbye kiss or do you want to run out before you decide to stay?"

"Of course I want a kiss," Hal said. He reached out, lifting Jason into his arms and tucking him close to his chest. He took a second to just hold him in his arms before pressing a kiss against his head. "I love you, little man." He held Jason for another moment before passing him back to Carol, "Okay. Take him before I decide he's coming into space with me."

"Not in a thousand years," Carol told him.

Hal thought about what he did every day, about all the things he saw when he was off planet and how often he found himself thinking that a mission would be his last, and found himself agreeing whole-heartedly with Carol. He didn't know what Carol's missions as a Star Sapphire required her to do, they didn't really talk about their lantern business since there was a slight conflict of interest in that, but he knew that he wouldn't ever want Jason doing what he did.

"Alright," Hal said, an easy agreement. He leaned forward, careful of Jason in Carol's arms, and pressed a kiss against Carol's lips. When he pulled away, he said, "I love you. I'll see you on Monday."

"I love you too," Carol said. "I'll see you in a couple of days."

* * *

Oa was a little over saturated in greens, but it was filled with the cultures of hundreds of planets and always bustling as the lanterns on planet went about their days and duties.

Hal had always enjoyed spending time there, but that first weekend he found himself worried that by being on Oa he was going to miss something important in his son's life. Hal took his duty as a guardian seriously, though, because he knew hos important is duties were. Missing parts of his son's life was simply a sacrifice he had to make in order to continue being able to help people the way he did.

He grew more comfortable with missing those moments as Jason grew up.

He learned how to focus the moments of Jason's growth that he did see rather than dwelling on the moments that he missed.

He wasn't around when Carol first introduced solid food to Jason, but he was around the first time that Jason decided he didn't like something they were feeding him. It was baby food meant to taste like macaroni and cheese with vegetables. When Jason smacked the food away, some of it had ended up on Hal's mouth and honestly he found himself agreeing with the baby. It was absolutely disgusting. He was at the edge of the sector when Jason said his first words, though Carol had recorded it for him to see when he got back, but Jason's first steps were an attempt to reach Hal when the man wasn't giving him the attention he wanted. Hal had immediately started screaming for Carol when he noticed that his son was holding their coffee table and wobbling towards him, but his screaming had startled Jason so much that he'd fallen right down onto his butt. It'd taken days for them to get Jason to try again. When he was away Carol took a video of Jason her asking Jason whether he loved Mama or Daddy more and happily proclaiming Mama, but the first night that Hal was back Jason grabbed one of his books from his shelves and held it out to Hal while chirping 'Story, da! Story!'

Hal loved his son and would have liked to be there for every moment of his son's life, but he knew how unrealistic that was. Carol's Sapphire business tended to keep her on Earth since there was plenty for her to do in the name of guarding love on Earth so she was with Jason almost all the time, with the only real exceptions being when Carol was at Ferris Aircrafts and Jason was at daycare, and there were still moments in Jason's life that she missed.

So not missing anything in his son's life was a little unrealistic and Hal learned how to treasure the moments that he was there for rather than focus on what he wasn't around for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was another one featuring a younger Jason, similar to the Booster and Beetle one.
> 
> 2) Kinda skipped over the actual pregnancy. That wasn't the original intention, but somehow I ended up focusing a lot on his brothers and John and just generally his relationships. 
> 
> 3) LOOK. i know star sapphires are supposed to be evil, but that's not v realistic in my head. I prefer Star Sapphires to be guardians of love in the galaxy and I will write them that way for the rest of my life. 
> 
> 4) [Here](https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-3120375/baby-boy-oshkosh-bgosh-dads-no-1-co-pilot-bodysuit.jsp?prdPV=53) is Jason's onesie bc it's adorable. 
> 
> 5) This is perhaps...not my favorite of these? I'm eager to hear what you guys thought.


	6. Gotham's Son I

"You're Poison Ivy."

It wasn't too late, but Gotham went inky black as soon as the sun sight and there was no light in the alleyway that she was strolling through so it took Ivy a moment to see who had spoken to her.

Crouching next to the dumpster she just passed, having twisted back when she heard the voice to see who had spoken, was a young boy. He was small, both in height and weight. Since little boys with families to take care of them didn't usually spend their nights next to dumpsters, Ivy assumed he was so small because he was malnourished. His hair was a dark black that blended into the night, barely seen, but his eyes were a sharp unmissable cerulean.

"I am," Ivy said. She moved, turning so that she was more comfortable as she looked at him. "And who are you?"

"My names Jason," he said. "I need your help with something."

Ivy raised an eyebrow. "I believe you've gotten me mixed up with Batman."

"No," Jason said, shaking his head. "I need your help. Batman can't do it!"

Ivy stared at the boy for a moment, head tilted as she tried to work out what exactly this small child could need that she would be more equipped to help with than Batman. She thought that every child in this city loved Batman. Gotham trusted it's local hero more than it's police officers, something which Ivy thought was probably in the people's best interest.

"What do you need?" she asked at last.

She did not like men, but this was not a man. This was a small, hurt boy. He had probably never done anything wrong in his life. Even if he had, she couldn't imagine him having done anything that wasn't a product of the life he was forced into. Children were innocent. They were victims suffering the consequences of other people's choices, just as she had been so many years ago.

She still believed that Batman was a more likely hero than herself, but she would never shy away from helping them when asked.

"You can make flowers grow," Jason said.

"You want flowers?" Ivy asked. She had been clueless as to what the boy could, but the idea that he would ask her for help with something as simple as obtaining flowers seemed ridiculous.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Jason pressed his lips together, as if considering whether he could share his reasons with Ivy or not. The idea that the reason could be a bigger deal than asking a known supervillain for help almost made Ivy smile. The priorities of children were a strange thing.

"Do you promise you won't tell anyone?" he asked.

"I'm Poison Ivy," she said. "I'm not exactly going to run to the police department or wait around for a friendly chat with Batman."

Jason watched her for another moment before saying, "The anniversary of my mom's death is tomorrow and you're supposed to buy flowers for something like that, right? But I don't have any money to buy flowers for her and the last time I went to a park some lady called the cops and I ended up getting picked up by social services."

Ivy considered.

Considering that Jason appeared to be living on the streets, she doubted that his mother had a real grave. But Gotham was familiar with bodies and there was a memorial for the city's unclaimed bodies. She didn't know how Jason's mother had died, but she imagined that his being on the streets meant that he'd fled the house before the police had arrived and that there likely hadn't been anyone to claim the body. She figured that Jason must have been looking for flowers to add to the memorial.

She found it sad that his mother likely didn't have a final resting place of her own, but at the same time she found herself charmed by the fact that Jason loved his mother enough for this to be something he cared about.

"Growing flowers out of nothing is difficult, even for me," Ivy told him. Before Jason's mood could drop, she continued, "But I have some cash. The two of us can go to a flower shop, you can pick something out for her, and I'll make sure they blossom beautifully."

Suspicion in his eyes, Jason questioned, "Won't they call the police if you walk into a flower shop?"

"Believe it or not," Ivy said, "the types of people who own flower shops tend to agree with me that humanity isn't treating nature correctly."

"So you _won't_ get arrested if you take me to a flower shop?" Jason asked.

"Not the ones owned by my friends," she replied.

"Alright," Jason said. "I'll go with you as long as no one's going to call the cops."

Ivy made a gesture with her hand, urging him to come towards her. "Come on then. If we don't get there soon, she's going to fall asleep before we arrive."

"Your friend is going to bed already?" Jason asked as he made his way to her side. "It's still early though."

* * *

By the time Ivy and Jason made their way to the shop and Jason decided what type of bouquet to get his mother, it had gone from late night to early morning.

Ivy insisted on getting at least a few hours of beauty sleep before she did anything else, so she told Jason that if he wanted her help making sure the flowers were at their most beautiful than he was going to have to come to Robins Park with her. Jason had tried to argue, saying that he didn't see why they couldn't just meet the next day, but Ivy had shut him down, saying that she certainly wasn't going to spend the next day trying to track him down. Eventually they took off for her home.

Her home was small, before she had taken the park over it had simply been a play cabin for the more creative children visiting the park, but there was a guest bedroom that Harley used when she was around. Ivy made the bed up for Jason. Despite his initial disagreements to coming home with her, he settled into the room easily. Ivy figured he was simply happy to be sleeping in a bed instead of on the ground for once.

The next morning Ivy woke up before Jason. She didn't feel the need to wake him up, to interrupt the time he had to sleep somewhere that he would be absolutely safe, so instead she went about her morning without bothering him. When he finally did emerge from his room, Ivy fixed them both breakfast and, after he had eaten, shoved him into her shower while he was too sleepy to protest.

Ivy had started washing the clothes he'd worn while he was in the shower, so afterwards she gave him some of her smaller clothes and promised that she would breath some life into the flowers they'd bought the night before and help him deliver them to the memorial as soon as his clothes were washed. Jason sat on the couch while they waited, probably wanting to argue but knowing that he couldn't leave while his clothing was in her washing machine. He sat there without doing anything, but Ivy saw his eyes straying to the small bookshelf she had. He never got up to touch them though, not even when Ivy told him that he was more than welcome to find something to do.

An hour later, Ivy was standing behind him while Jason bent down to set the flowers, blooming brightly as though they were still attached to the ground, down in front of the memorial. She stayed there as he crouched there, just staring for several minutes, before he finally stood up again.

Ivy made him come to lunch with her afterwards, claiming that lunch was more fun with someone to share it with.

He ended up coming back to her home again afterwards.

When Ivy had first met Jason in that alleyway, she hadn't been anticipating taking him in. She figured she'd help him with the flowers and then send him on his way, but she found that she liked him and she liked taking care of him.

So she kept finding reasons for Jason to stay and Jason kept going along with it.

A little more than half a year passed.

Ivy learned that Jason was nine years old, that despite having not finished second grade he was smart and curious, that he loved coffee but was absolutely in love with the flowering jasmine tea she occasionally made, and that when the weather was cold he preferred to avoid going outside.

The guest room became his bedroom, filling up with knick-knacks that he'd picked up. He had a dirty baseball mitt that he'd found while he was wandering the streets one day and a baseball that he'd found out in the park. Ivy made a small maple bookshelf that soon became filled with novels and comic books and anything else that he could get his hands on. On his bed there was a Wonder Woman doll that he'd had stashed somewhere else for a while, a gift his mother had saved for and bought him for his sixth birthday, and to the house around the same time that he stopped looking as though Ivy was going to throw him out.

Jason grew more comfortable with the fact that this was his home and that Ivy was his....his something. Jason stopped flinching and apologizing when they bumped into each other in the kitchen. He stopped asking permission before doing something. When the season changed from summer to fall, Jason started curling up with her on the couch, draping a blanket over his legs and tucking himself up against her.

Ivy had never anticipated being anything like a mother, but she found herself enjoying it and treasuring Jason's presence. She found herself filling with warm affection when they were together, so different from what she felt with Harley but also _so_  similar because she wanted nothing but to protect and take care of them both.

So predictably, like all other things in her life, a man ruined it for her.

She supposed that Batman wasn't entirely at fault for her being thrown back into Arkham, she had been the one who had let her outrage at the chemical planet take over instead of focusing on her life with Jason and how much she was enjoying being a mother to a person rather than just a collection of plants but there were some parts of life that couldn't be left behind even as the future came, but he had been the one to put her in the cuffs and escort her.

So she was choosing to blame him.

She was just glad that she had set up a plan for this exact situation.

* * *

"Petal!"

Ivy was sitting at a table in Arkham's rec room, drawing swirling flowers on the paper in front of her, when she heard the call. A moment later a heavy weight fell against her back, arms wrapping around her neck and squeezing tightly.

"Harley," one of the guards said, tone warning. Ivy thought it might have been Marcus, but he hadn't been in the room last she had checked. He wondered if he'd come in with Harley or if she'd been so caught in her doodling and her drifting thoughts that she hadn't noticed a shift change.

"Sorry, sorry! I was just happy to see Ivy again!" Harley said. She unwound herself from around Ivy, used to this by now. The guards were used to the way Harley was, but there were rules they had to enforce. They wouldn't step in between quick hugs, but they would warn them off of lingering with each other too long. As long as Harley got some of the touch she craved, she was happy to go along with their rules. "We haven't seen each other in months, Marcie!"

"Well, that's because you weren't where you were supposed to be."

"Semantics," Harley dismissed, waving a hand. She plopped herself into the seat next to Ivy, leaning in close. There was space between them, but so little that Ivy could practically seen the heat from Harley's breasts against her arm. "So, whats been going on in this joint, Petal?"

Usually Ivy would have been happy to discuss Arkham's going ons, but right now she was looking at Harley and all she could think about was Jason.

Because when Ivy had left to blow up that chemical planet, she had known what she was risking.

She had left Jason in bed, asleep, but she had kissed his forehead and whispered a goodbye before slipping out and she had left a long note on the counter explaining how to find Harley if she wasn't back in the morning. Harley had sent her a letter shortly after Ivy had returned to Arkham, something that they rarely did since it compromised their freedom, letting her know that Harley had Jason.

"Where's Jason?" Ivy asked. Something like panic was swelling in her chest, coming in fast and restricting her breath. "Harley, if you're in here than _where is Jason?"_

"He's fine," Harley said. Everything in her was loose and unworried, but Ivy couldn't help thinking that that didn't mean much. She loved Harley dearly, more than she had ever imagined being able to love a person after what Legrand had done to her, but the fact of the matter was that Harley kept going back to the Joker. Ivy usually tried to be understanding of that, to recognize that Harley was a victim and hadn't quite worked up the strength to make a break yet, but the Joker was dangerous in a way the rest of the rogues weren't. If Harley had put Jason anywhere near him.....Well, Ivy wasn't entirely certain she could forgive her for that. "I dropped him off with Freeze before I met up with Mr. J."

Ivy thought about this.

Victor Fries was not the worst person that came to mind when Ivy thought about people who could take care of Jason when she was away. He was not her first choice, but now that Ivy was thinking about it she found that he was probably a better choice than her first choice. Harley had all of these messy ties to the Joker, but Victor didn't. Victor despised the man as much as Ivy did. And while Victor was certainly not sane, pushed to the brink by his wife's death, he was one of the best of them. He did what he did because he loved his wife so fiercely and wanted her back. He was not a bad man, just one that had been pushed too far. He would take care of Jason the best he could.

"I shouldn't have asked you about what's going on here," Harley said. Ivy snapped out of her thoughts, focusing back on the woman in front of her. "I should tell you what's been going on with Jason. You'd probably prefer to hear that, wouldn't you?"

"I would," Ivy said. She leaned over a bit, bumping her shoulder gently against Harley. "But we can gossip afterwards, I promise."

* * *

Ivy spent the next couple of hours listening to Harley tell her about the three months that she had spent with Jason.

Harley told her about how she had moved into Ivy's bedroom while she was gone so that she could stay with him. She talked about an evening that she'd spent teaching Jason how to do cartwheels in the living room since the snow was too thick to teach him outside. She told Ivy how they had gotten talking about school and how badly Jason wanted to go, so Harley had contacted one of their friends to enroll Jason in the local elementary school. She told Ivy how Jason was behind in math and science, but how he was ahead in his reading and writing even despite having missed several years. She told Ivy how she and Jason had sat together in the kitchen, eating the kind of snacks that Ivy hated as Harley tried to remember things from her own school days so she could help Jason with his homework.

Ivy drank it all in. She was a little upset that she had missed something as big as Jason going back to school, that she hadn't been there to help him, but she was mostly just happy to hear something about Jason. She was mostly just happy to hear that Jason was happy.

Knowing that Jason was fine was enough for Ivy to settle back down and enjoy this time with early. Her thoughts frequently fell back to Jason, but knowing that he had been okay the last time Harley had seen him made things slightly better.

Two months later, Victor ended up in Arkham as well and Ivy got to hear more stories about Jason. He told her how he and Jason had made their own ice cream cream and how Jason had preferred the vanilla ice cream they'd made to the chocolate. He told her how Jason's school had had a science fair and how he had helped Jason do an experiment on how different things acted after being frozen for a certain amount of time. He told her how Jason was making friends and how he sometimes he would disappear on weekend afternoons so that he could play baseball in a park with the boys he was close to.

There had been a tight worry slowly filling Ivy's chest since Harley's arrival, but Victor's information was enough to ease the pressure.

But Victor's information wasn't a fix to the problem.

Knowing what was going on tided Ivy over, but she still wanted nothing as much as she wanted to be _with him_  again.

* * *

Ivy walked through the Iceberg lounge, moving swiftly and glaring in a way that stopped anyone from daring to step into her path, until she reached the door to the back entrance. She pushed it open without so much as a pause, stepping inside.

Sitting inside at Oswald's desk was Jason. He had a worksheet on the desk in front of him, Ivy couldn't tell what it was for certain but she could make out enough numbers to tell that it was probably math, but he looked away from it when Ivy pushed the door open.

For a single moment, fear pulsed through Ivy.

It had taken her almost eight months to get out of Arkham again. Jason had lived without her almost as long as he'd lived with her. Would he want to stay with her again? Or would he prefer to be with one of the others who had broken out? Would he rather go back to Harley or Victor? Would he want to go back to Dent, who he had stayed with after Victor? Would he want to stay here with Oswald and Edward?

All of those fears were wiped away as a large, bright smile spread across Jason's face.

"Ivy! You're back!" He stood up quickly, practically shooting out of the chair. "Does this mean I can go home now?"

"Yes," Ivy said, her chest warm with affection. She looked at the desk, eyes sweeping across the papers covering it, before saying, "We'll go home as soon as you gather your things."

"It's homework," Jason said, already reaching forward to start gathering them. "Harley enrolled me in school when I was staying with her."

"I heard," Ivy told him. She stepped towards him, moving so she could get a better idea of what he was working on. She was right when she'd guessed that it was math. It looked a little simple for someone his age, but she remembered Victor and Dent telling her that he'd improved a lot since he had first started school. He wasn't quite with others his age yet, but he was getting there quickly. "Are you enjoying it?"

"Yes," Jason said. Ivy smiled a little bit. She wasn't surprised. Jason was eager for knowledge. She had no doubt that he would enjoy going to school more than other children his age, especially given that he had been stripped of that opportunity for years. Maybe one day, when he was older, he wouldn't enjoy school as much as he did now, but even that seemed like a long shot. "It's amazing." Jason frowned for a moment before looking at her, "I can keep going even when I'm with you, right?"

"Yes," Ivy said. "Of course you can."

She would not take this away from him. She supposed it was a good thing that so many of Gotham's villains were academics. No one who watched over Jason would ever try to take this from him, not when they all believed in it so fiercely.

Noticing that he had finished shoving his things into his bag, a red and blue bag covered in stars and Wonder Woman's symbol that Harley had mentioned buying for him when he'd started school, Ivy held a hand out for him to grab. "Come on then. Let's go home."

* * *

Everyone who had watched Jason loved him and now that they were out of Arkham all of them were eager to see him again.

However, Ivy kept him to herself for a few weeks. He still want to school, but when he wasn't in class it was just the two of them.

Ivy would wake up in the mornings before he had to leave to catch his bus. She would make him breakfast, pancakes for their first morning together again but then simpler things like cinnamon oatmeal or eggs, while he got dressed. When Jason trudged into the dining room, they would eat together. Afterwards Ivy would attempt to tame his hair, something that almost never worked, before sending him off to brush his teeth. When he was ready, he would hug her tightly before darting out to catch his bus.

The first day, Ivy had followed him just so that she knew where it was and could make sure he got there okay. In the following days, she didn't. Jason had lived on the streets long enough to know how to protect himself. She didn't see any harm in letting him spend time with his friends, a group of boys who got on the bus at the same place, without her eavesdropping.

When he got back from school, Ivy would have a pot of tea and a snack waiting. The two of them would sit around the table while Jason worked on his homework. He was only in third grade so he didn't have a very large amount of homework or anything really difficult. Usually it was just some math worksheets or a spelling list to study for that weeks test or a book he needed to read a chapter of because he'd been talking during reading time. Ivy would help him with what he needed help with, but mostly she would just sit with him and listen to the stories he had to tell about his day.

Once Jason was done with his homework, the two of them would go their separate ways for a few hours, each of them doing their own thing.

Regardless of what he'd been doing, Jason was always in the kitchen offering to help Ivy once she started making dinner. She would let him do simple things like chop vegetables or measure out spices. Ivy had a small stereo that she played while she cooked, so the two of them would sing and dance as they made dinner. It was a loose and fun and affectionate. Afterwards when they were eating, Jason would tell her stories about what he'd been doing since he'd finished his homework. Sometimes that meant she got a run down of a novel he'd been reading, but sometimes he talked about his friends and how he'd been playing baseball with them a few blocks away.

Once dinner was done, Ivy would send Jason off to the bath. Sometimes he objected, wanting to get back to reading or go back out to meet his friends again, but Ivy put her foot down and made sure he cleaned up.

There would be a few hours after his bath before Jason was ready for bed, but Ivy made sure he stayed inside during that time. Gotham didn't get very dangerous until far later than Jason was up nowadays, Ivy and the others having made sure to get him on a schedule better for children his age now that he was with them, but Ivy still didn't like the idea of him running around once the sun went down. There were plenty of things in Gotham more dangerous than her.

After sometime had passed, however, Ivy invited those that Jason had stayed with over for dinner.

They spent most of the evening catching up with Jason. He told Harley how Madelyn, one of the girls in his class, was in gymnastics and how she was really impressed with his cartwheels and how she was teaching him other things during recess. He told Victor what they had been learning in his science lessons and how they did some really fun experiments, but he didn't really like the boys he worked with because they just messed around. He told Harvey how he'd met Jamie's father during the class' Valentines day party and how Jamie's dad had a really big scar on his face just like him but Jamie's dad had gotten it in a war. He thought it made Jamie's dad look really cool and tough, just like Harvey. He would ask Edward for riddles and did his best to answer them without any help from Oswald.

It was once Jason had gone to sleep that the group of them got down to business.

By the end of the night they had established a set of rules for taking care of Jason.

The most important of which were these:  
**1)** First and foremost, he was Ivy's son. He could visit the rest of them, but when she was out he was living with her.

 

 **2)** No one had to stop their business when Jason was with them, but Jason was to be kept out of it and no one was to do anything big without making sure Jason was taken care of.

  
**3)** Others could be brought into their circle if necessary, but neither Batman or the Joker were to be know of Jason and Jason was to be kept far away from them at any and all costs. They would not be allowed to take Jason away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi guys! Welcome to the first chapter of the final "story" in this story. We'll be looping back to Wonder Woman after this. 
> 
> 2) Trying very hard to balance Ivy's canon distrust of men with her being a mother to a boy, so we'll see how that goes. 
> 
> 3) Okay so I didn't make Arkham a horrible depressing place, because Bruce geniunely believes that he's helping people and thinks that all of his villains can be helped. He THINKS that Arkham is the best place for them, not just for the people but also for THEM, and I don't think he'd send them to Arkham if it was terrible. Even if it's a prison as much as it is an mental institution. 
> 
> 4) I feel like this one falls flat in run up? Like Ivy just adopts Jason and gives him everything without any build up?


	7. The First Son of Themyscira II

"Hello?"

"Mom, hey."

"Jason," Diana said, voice instantly filled with happiness. Just hearing her had Jason smiling. It had been a long time since he had heard her voice. After months on the front lines, Jason relished in this reminder of home. When she spoke again, some of the happiness had given way to soft concern. "How are you, darling? You aren't hurt, are you?"

"No, no. I'm good," Jason said. "I had to come back to Seoul to deliver some intelligence. I'm supposed to be heading back to the front tomorrow. My handler was nice enough to find me a phone that I could use to give you a call on."

The end of World War Two had been the end of Diana's military career. No one had forced her out, in fact plenty of people had tried to force her to stay, but Diana had been exhausted after participating in two wars as bloody as the Great Wars were. She was a warrior, but there was dignity and little honor in what she had seen. She had settled in to a life in England. Right now she was working on getting a University degree in History, when she told Jason what she was studying she'd said her choice was because she knew so little about the country she had spent her time fighting for, and taking care of Etta, who was in the late - and likely last few - years of her life.

Jason, however, had continued his service. He didn't _like_  war, but his blood was that of a warrior and there was something exhilarating about being in a battlefield. He wanted to be in the thick of things, feeling that rush. He wanted to help people too, to keep people like his mother and his aunt Etta safe. He wanted to be a good man like his father had been. Maybe war wasn't the only way to do that, but right now it was the way that Jason found best.

"And you're fine?"

"A little tired, obviously, but otherwise yeah, I'm fine," Jason said. "Like I said - I'm in Seoul delivering some information. It's got nothing to do with my being injured or anything."

"Good." There was relief in her voice now, quiet but obvious. "I'm glad."

"Mom, I'm not really sure how long I'm going to have to talk to you. I don't think their going to let me take up this office all day," Jason said. "And I don't really want to spend the time I do have talking about me and the war. Could we maybe talk about you and what's going on at home instead?"

"Yes, of course," Diana agreed. Jason thought this was one of the good things about having a parent who had been to war. Diana might not have seen _this_  war, but she had seen war and she knew the feelings he was having. She knew what it was like to spend months in a foreign country, taking the burden of lives on your shoulders, and desperately wanting the comforts of home. She did not push him for any sort of explanations or think that his asking for a subject change meant that something was wrong with him. She knew there _was_  something wrong, because she had the same weight in her chest as he did. "Would you like to talk to Etta?"

"Yes," Jason said, voice portraying just how desperately he wanted that. Etta had lived a long, happy life and it was obvious that it would be coming to an end soon. He wanted whatever time he could get with her before that happened. Jason's one regret about continuing his military career was that it meant he likely wouldn't be there for her in her last moments. They were hoping they had a few more years with her, hopefully enough time for Jason to finish this war and return home, but there was no guarantee. "She's awake?"

"She is," Diana said. "She's in the kitchen fussing over how I didn't buy enough vegetables on my last trip to the grocery store."

Jason found himself smiling. "It's been a good day for her then?"

"Yup," Diana said. "She's been up and about a lot this week."

"Good," Jason said. Etta spent a lot of time in bed these days, simply feeling too weak and tired to do very much. Her getting around to bother Diana about her grocery shopping was a good thing.

"Yes," Diana agreed. There was a quiet moment, both of them simply thinking about it. Finally, she said, "I'll be right back, okay? I'm going to grab a chair for her to sit in while you talk. Then I'll go find her and help her get over here."

"Alright. I'll be waiting."

* * *

Seoul was a large, bustling city and Jason loved it. He spent time in it intermittently during the war, never for very long at once but long enough all together for it to leave an impression on him, and every time he was in the city he found himself falling a little bit more in love with it.

The city was far from untouched by the world around it, especially given it's proximity to the front lines, but the people who lived there went about their lives in the best way they could. They were, understandably, saddened and scared, but they weren't letting those things control their lives.

Jason spent time in a dabang, drinking coffee and listening to music and improving his rudimentary Korean by speaking to the men that were there with him. Once, he ended up spending several hours discussing Korean music with a woman who was supposed to meet up with date and gotten stood up instead. When his platoon was in the city with him, something that wasn't always true given that Jason frequently delivered information alone while they stayed on the front lines, Jason would go to traditional Korean bakeries with his fellow soldiers, the group of them indulging in treats since it was one of the few small pleasures they had access too even so close to a raging war. There was a bakery called Taegeukdang that served monaka ice cream bars that quickly became Jason's favorite indulgence.

The more time Jason spent in Seoul, the more he became acquainted not just with the city but with the Korean culture as a whole, the more he found himself struggling with his role in the war.

As much as he loved it, he wasn't Korean nor did he live there. He was a visitor in this country, an outsider to everything going on. And, when he was on the front lines, he was working with men who were fighting their own countrymen, who were possibly fighting their uncles or cousins or maybe even their _brothers._

He had not fought in a war like this before, not one were a country was fractured and fighting against itself.

Learning about the country, immersing himself in it as he did, made it harder to think about what he was doing.

He knew _why_  things had turned out this way, but it was still hard for him to wrap his head around it. It was hard for him to imagine being in that place, to imagine what it would feel like to have to do the things these men had to do. It became harder to do what he had to do, knowing that those working with him were likely struggling more than he was.

He made him wonder if he had any right to be here, if he had any right to participate in a conflict so deeply personal as this one.

It was easy to justify his actions in World War Two, especially knowing everything that had come out in the aftermath, but Jason couldn't place and justify his actions in Korea as it had been two decades before.

But Jason had signed on to a be a soldier and that meant that, no matter what he thought about it, he had to follow his orders.

He just hoped that when this war ended, whenever he was allowed to return home, he would be able to look back on his actions and approve of them in a way he didn't during the war. He hoped that when everything ended, he would understand more than he did now.

* * *

Jason stood on the train platform, glancing around as he searched the crowd.

Soldiers all around him were smiling and calling out names. A few of them had run off to meet lovers, sweeping wives or girlfriend into their arms and spinning them in the air. There were a few who had done the same, but with their children. They lifted small baby girls and boys into their arms, holding them tightly and pressing kisses against their hair. It was all a little dramatic, but it was happy and heartwarming. Jason was glad for each of them.

He had just started wondering if his own welcome party had gotten delayed and was debating whether he could get an ice cream cone from the small stand in the station, when he heard, "Jason!"

Jason was sure he wasn't the only one in the room named Jason, but the speaker's voice was so familiar that he knew they were looking for him.

He turned just in time to see his mother break through the crowd around him.

"Mom," he said.

The sight of her had something twisting in his chest, everything he'd been pushing back for the past few years rushing to the front. With his men he had to be strong, because he was there leader and if he fell apart they all would. But his mother had been with him his entire life, had seen his lowest and highest points, and loved him regardless. His mother didn't care if he was strong or weak. She loved him no matter what. She was always on his side, always there to comfort him.

She stepped forward into his space, reaching out and wrapping her arms around him.

"Mom," he repeated, choking on the word. He'd grown taller than her in his adulthood, but not so much that it was difficult to deal with. He wrapped his arms around her, tucking his face against her hair.

"Hello," she said, her hands settling against his back. Her voice was quiet, washing over him like calming waves. "It's good to see you again."

"It's good to see you too," Jason said.

"Etta was having a good day today, so the two of us cooked a bunch of your favorite foods," she said. She was talking without much care, like she was carrying on the conversation not just because she wanted to, but also because she knew he needed a few more moments wrapped in the comfort of her embrace. "There's practically a feast waiting for you at home."

"Did you make scotch eggs?"

"Yup." Diana rubbed a hand down his back, the way she used to do when he curled up with her when he was sick. "And lots of other things too."

"Okay." Jason took a deep breath, steadying himself, and then pulled away from her. She let him go easily, apparently satisfied as long as he felt better. "Let's go get something to eat. I tried some really delicious stuff in Korea, but I missed Aunt Etta's cooking."

"Not mine?"

"I missed yours a little bit," Jason said. "But we both know Aunt Etta is five hundred times better than you are with it."

"You aren't wrong."

* * *

For a while things were...

Not easy, because Diana has been away from war for years and still has nightmares, so there was really no chance of Jason /not/ having them when he was home fresh from the latest chaos and still not over what he'd seen in the second World War.

So.

Not easy, but things weren't bad either.

For a while things were actually pretty good.

Jason didn't immediately get a job. Being a soldier had felt like the best possible career for him, but he had decided in Korea that he was done with it. Diana had suggested he go to school like she was, especially given that it would be much easier for Jason since he had actually grown up in England and had paperwork that she didn't, but Jason had absolutely no idea what he wanted to do. He loved school when he was a child and he wanted to go back, wanted to learn more than he had, but he didn't like the idea of spending the money to go to school when he still felt so adrift.

With all of his time free, Jason took over taking Etta. He'd sit by her bedside on her bad days, holding her hands and telling her stories. Sometimes he told her about his time in Korea, the funny and amazing stories that had brightened his days during the war. Not all of them were his stories to tell, but he didn't think the soldiers who had told him some of them would mind. Sometimes he read to her the classics that he favored as a child, the books that he had spent his childhood rambling to her about anytime she gave him an ear, but sometimes he read to her things that had come out while he was in Korea - like the Chronicles of Narnia or East of Eden. Sometimes he made stories up for her, words spilling from his mouth and weaving into stories in the space between them.

Jason had babysat when he was a teenage, trying his best to help the people in his life as the depression hit England, so he took up babysitting again. Times weren't as dire as they had been back then, but Jason had inherited his good heart from his mother and Diana was always surrounded by people who could use a little extra hand. Jason watched half the neighborhood, but there were only five kids that he watched regularly. There was a little girl, only six years old, named Gisella who always begged Jason to dance with her because her Papa was usually too tired to do it when he got home from work. Jason could always tell when her father had a good day, because Gisella's usual request would get shoved to the side in favor of humming as she colored. There were two brothers, Michael who was ten and David who was six. David was a good kid, bubbly and curious in the way all kids his age were, but Michael was grumpy and irritated the first time Jason had watched them. He thought he was too old for a babysitter. He still got upset occasionally, but Jason let him help out with taking care of the other kids and it was enough to make him feel as though he was being treated like he should. Then there was Marianne, a four year old who's father had died in the war and whose mother was trying to get her feet under her. The last of his charges was a baby boy named Steven, only seven months old, who was being raised by an aunt and uncle who loved him dearly, but who had never planned on having children and were struggling to adjust to the newest addition in their lives. Jason loved each of them and adored taking care of them.

When he wasn't taking care of Etta or the kids, Jason would end up at the library. He soaked up as much information as possible, hoping that something would catch his interest enough to propel him into the next stage of his life. He didn't have any luck. Instead of finding a new passion to pursue seriously, he learned so many new things that he couldn't choose between them. He found passion in so many things that the idea of giving even one of them up for the others was absurd.

So things were good for a while.

But soon enough Jason started to feel a deep, all consuming boredom sweeping into him.

He loved his mother and Etta and all of the kids, but the monotony of everything made the days drag on.

He wanted to see more, to _do more._

He had joined the army in order to help people, but the constant movement and the ever-changing environment had been a draw as well.

Jason could tell that his mother knew how he was feeling. He wondered if that was because she had felt the same way before she had left Themyscira. England was his mother's adventure. This world around them was his mother's new journey, her radical adventure and change. But England was Jason's home and he would never get what she had gotten from it. To him staying in England was the same as staying in Themyscira would have been to her.

Neither of them brought it up, however.

Or at least, neither of them brought it up until half a year after Etta's death.

* * *

Jason knocked on Diana's door twice before rocking backwards on his heels. He called out, "Mom? Can I come in?"

"Of course," Diana said.

Jason pulled the door open, peering inside to find Diana was perched on the edge of her bed. She was wearing a white dress, a pretty thing covered in red hearted shape polka dots. She smiled at him, waving a hand so he knew that he could come further inside.

"Hello," she greeted. "Are you going out for the night?"

"No," he said, shaking his head a little. He crossed the room, making his way so that he could settle down on the bed next to her. "I just wanted to come talk to you."

There was a quiet moment as the two of them looked at each other.

Jason found himself remembering the night, decades ago, when he had come to her to talk about his decision to enlist. They both looked the same now as they did then, age halted by their amazonian blood. Nowadays when Jason or Diana introduced someone to the other, there were shocked exclamations about how there was no way Diana was Jason's mother rather than his sister. They weren't just statements of flattery, but facts. But while Jason looked physically the same, he had grown in ways that neither of them would have imagined since that first conversation. He had grown in ways that his mother had known he would from the moment he had told her his decision and in ways that she probably wished he never would.

"When are you leaving?" Diana said at last.

They had both known this was coming. It had been creeping up on them for ages. Jason had stayed for so long because he wanted to be there for Etta when she died and then he'd stayed to deal with his grief - and to help his mother through the death of her closest friend and the last person that had known his father.

"I haven't finalized anything. I wanted to tell you first," Jason said. "But I think it's going to be the end of next month. It will give everyone time to adjust and figure things out."

"Where are you going to go?"

"I haven't figured that out yet either," Jason said. He had settled down close enough that shifting bumped his shoulder against hers. "But I think I want to see a little more of Europe now that we're not at war and then go to the United States." He was quiet for a moment before adding, "I'd like to see Asia again someday, but I don't think I can do that right now."

"It's a good plan," Diana said. "I saw so much of the world while you were growing up, but you haven't gotten to see anything outside of war."

"Yeah." Jason was quiet for a moment before he said, "But is it okay? Because if you need me to stay around longer then-"

"You should go," Diana told him, cutting him off. They had both been looking at the wall in front of them, but now Diana turned to face him. Jason shifted as well, knowing that it was important to look at his mother when they were having conversations like this. "You're almost fifty years old, Jason. I think you're more than ready to live without me."

"You're my mom," Jason said. "I'm never going to be ready to live without you."

Diana expression went soft, warm affection settling in her eyes. "Maybe it's more accurate to say, then, that at almost fifty, you're more than ready to live somewhere other than your mother's house."

* * *

Jason spent the next month saying goodbye to various people.

When he told some of his friends from the army what he was planning, they insisted on getting as many of them together as possible for a pub night. Jason spent the evening shoved into a booth with ten other guys, all of them telling loud embarrassing stories about him and spilling warm beer on the table in their excitement. By the time they let Jason go home, smothering him in tight hugs and well wishes, Jason was stumbling rather than walking down the street. He was lucky Diana was still up when he got home, because he'd spent ten minutes trying to get an upside down key to fit in the lock before she came to let him in.

The kids had grown since Jason had first gotten back from the Korean War, but Jason still watched all of them. So he had to go around telling all of their parents that he was planning on leaving, giving all of them time to find new childcare or figure something out. He knew that David and Michael's parents were thinking of letting Michael and David stay home, leaving Michael in charge of his younger brother. The parents insisted on having a large, goodbye barbecue for him so that all of the kids could say their goodbyes to Jason and so the kids could have one last day together.

He got a train ticket from London to Brussels that was set to leave on a Monday. The Saturday before, he made his way to Etta's grave and spent a few hours sitting in front of it, telling her headstone what his plans for the next few weeks were.

He spent all of Sunday with his mother. She treated him to a breakfast out in the morning before they went on an extremely tourist-y walk around London. Jason marveled at the city around him while his and was looped through his mothers, admiring the city that he had grown up in since he didn't know when he would be back. Afterwards the two of them went to the cinema together, the way they had back when he had been a child. When the movie ended, Jason to on her out to dinner. She'd tried to object, saying he didn't need to be spending his money on his mother when he was about to go traveling, but Jason had insisted until she gave in.

Spending Sunday with her didn't make saying goodbye to her on Monday any easier.

Jason spent the first few months touring Europe. He started out in Brussels, making his way through to Paris and then Barcelona. He went to Berlin and Budapest. He went up to Oslo and then Copenhagen. He sent his mother long rambling letters and postcards from every city he visited.

He'd been away from England for six months when he worked up enough money for a plane ticket, having been working small odd jobs in each place he visited, and decided to go to America.

He flew into New York in Feburary.

He stayed there long enough that he made enough money to buy an old car from one of the men he had been working for.

He'd been intending to drive down to Florida, but on his way through Jersey he found himself in Gotham. He'd been intending to just passby, but there was something about the city that made him pause.

It was a growing city, not too big yet, but it was one that called to Jason.

He ended up finding a hotel there.

Days turned to weeks.

Jason found a semi-perment job working at a small automechanic shop. His boss and his wife, Larry and Ruth O'Brien, let Jason stay in their guest bedroom.

He wrote his mother every week.

Weeks turned to months.

Jason moved out of the O'Brien's home, having found an apartment to rent with some of the other guys from work. One of them had an older cousin, Meredith, who Jason started a tentative thing with.

Before he knew it, Jason had been in Gotham for a year.

It never occurred to him to leave.

Gotham had sunk her claws into him and made him into one of her own.

Gotham had become his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Heyo! This chapter went back around to Diana. Hopefully everyone enjoyed this continuation of the story!
> 
> 2) I debated for a while about where to station Jason in this chapter, but eventually I settled on the 50s and Jason being in the Korean War. I also did an absurdly in depth amount of research on Korea during the Korean war, but I'm definitely not an expert. If anyone is and sees glaring inconsistencies - let me know so I can change them. 
> 
> 3) Taegeukdang is, I believe, one of the oldest bakeries in Korea nowadays. But during the Korean war, it would have been only a few years old. Less than a decade. 
> 
> 4) I'm a little iffy on the final section, so let me know how you feel about it.


	8. The Crown Prince of Atlantis II

"Father," Jason said as the doors to the room opened. He stood up, lifting out of the throne. When Arthur was gone, it was his duty to sit there and watch over their Kingdom. But it was also his duty to stand aside once his father was back, to let Atlantis' true King take back his seat until his reign was over. "Welcome home."

"It's good to be home, my son," Arthur said. He walked across the throne room with a confidence that Jason wished he had inherited. Jason wondered, hoped, that it was something that would come with time, that being nothing more than an interim King meant that he didn't have the same confidence in his ability to rule their Kingdom and that once he was on the throne properly he would be able to command a room the way his father did.

The three people he had brought with him followed, bodies shimmering with magic, as they exchanged confused looks.

Jason wondered, briefly, who had cast the spells on them and given them the ability to breath in the city. His mother was the most talent mage in Atlantis and was usually the first choice for any magic the royal family needed done, but she had been with him the entire time.

They had been discussing the artifact that had gone missing. His father was returning to the city because he thought he knew who had taken it, but knowing who took it didn't ensure that they'd be able to catch them before they rained havoc on Atlantis. Jason and Mera had been discussing the magic of the artifact taken and ways that they could, at least partially, dampen it's power in order to protect their people.

"Arthur," his mother said. She had been standing next to the throne, but now she moved forward and towards her husband. Jason hadn't really been in his way, but he still found himself stepping to the side and giving them space. His mother and father adored each other. It was comforting to know that they still loved each other, but even as an adult Jason preferred to avert his gaze in moments like this. "My King."

"Mera," his father said, a gentle smile coming over his features as he stepped up and met her on the second step. He reached up, setting his hands on her face. Mera reached up, resting her hands on Arthur's wrists. "It's been too long, my Queen."

Giving his parents space, Jason made his way down the stairs and to his father's companions.

He hesitated for a moment in figuring out how to greet them, whether to lean towards Atlantean customs that they wouldn't know or surface customs which _he_  wasn't too familiar with.

Ultimately he decided surface customs were best because while he wasn't entirely well-versed in them, as a child his time on the surface had always included his father who already knew all of those things and as a teenage his time on the surface had never been formal enough for him to learn these kinds of things, he supposed he knew more about them than the visitors knew about Atlantis.

"Hello," Jason said, holding his hand out for the man who was now at the front of the group. "I am Jason, son of Aquaman and Mera, and Crown Prince of Atlantis."

"Superman," the man said as he grabbed onto Jason's hand. He let go of Jason's hand and gestured at the people on either side of him. "This is Batman and Wonder Woman. They work with your father and I." Jason nodded at each of them, smiling softly. It wasn't appropriate for him to bow to them, but a nod was fine. The man inclined in his head in Jason's direction, quiet in his acknowledgement, while the woman gave a small smile of her own and said a quiet hello. "It's a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Thank you," Jason said. "And thank you for offering your assistance. On behalf of myself and the citizens of Atlantis."

"No need to thank us. It's our job."

"Still."

"Jason." At his father's call, Jason stepped away from the group and turned to look at him. His parents had separated and they were both standing straight now, backs straight with regal seriousness. Jason wondered how close his father had become to these people that Arthur had allowed himself to lapse for even a moment, had allowed himself to embrace his wife instead of keeping his professional guard up the entire time. It was clear his father wasn't exactly relaxed around these people, he had swept in with his authority and returned to it quickly, but he had let the role of King slip for just a moment to say his hello to Mera. "Have you prepared the advisers room so we can meet there?"

"Yes," Jason said.

"Excellent. Thank you," Arthur said. Gesturing for the group, he said, "Follow me. I can give you more information on the artifact once we're somewhere more secure."

Jason stepped even further away, making room for the group to move past him.

He felt strange standing in the hallway, watching them leave.

He'd been the one in charge of the palace while his father was away. Now that his father was back and Jason no longer had the responsibilities he'd had before, even if those burdens were lifted only until Arthur left again, Jason felt a little lost.

He stood in the empty throne room for a moment before turning.

He'd go to Atlantis, he decided. He could go see the city and the citizens, could go think about the logistics of protecting them and if any of his and his mother's plans would work.

It would be more a more valuable use of his time then sitting around the castle. 

* * *

Jason spent the first few days after Arthur's return to Atlantis feeling listless, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing.

He wasn't really King anymore, not now that his father was back in the city, but Arthur was busy trying to find the artifact that had been stolen which meant that even though Jason wasn't King anymore, he was still doing half of the duties he was responsible for. But now instead of having the power to actually do the things he needed and wanted to do, he had to track down his father and get permission in order to do them.

Jason had always had a role in the city.

He was the Crown Prince. Even when he'd been nothing more then a child, there had been responsibilities that came with his position. Some had been as simple as attending his lessons so he'd know what was expected of Atlantis' next King, but others had meant being a playmate for the children of any important visitors. As a teenage, his job had been to be visible and involved in the lives of the people. He was meant to be a connection between Atlantis' citizens and the King and Queen that worked so hard to protect them. As an adult he had been a soldier, protecting the people he would one day rule. And then he had been on the throne, working to be the man that his parents had raised him to be and which his people needed him to be.

Jason's role had always been so clear cut, so pre-planned. But now he sat in a gray area where he wasn't expected to move forward or backwards, where he was more than simply a soldier or the Crown Prince but he also wasn't an acting King anymore.

It wasn't like his place in Atlantis was in jeopardy, even if he was struggling now it was certain what his place in Atlantis would be, but there was something about being so unsure about his place _now_  that made him think more then he had been before. It made him wonder about what he was doing, about what he wanted to do.

It wasn't as though he didn't want to be what he was - Atlantis' princes weren't required to join the army, Jason had done it because he had wanted to be one of Atlantis' warriors for his entire life - but it made him wonder if he shouldn't see more, if he shouldn't do more, before he became that King.

He knew what it was like to be King now, knew how much of his life it would take up.

He had spent time on the surface as child and a teenager before his duties had grown, before there had stopped being time for him to go. He had loved it, though. Atlantis and the sea were gorgeous, but there were so many beautiful things on the surface that he didn't get to see in the sea or which were completely different in the sea. The mountains in the ocean were so different then the mountains he'd seen in surface books and there were so many animals that he had never even glimpsed. And the surface had so many books and so much art. Atlantis had poets and novelists, but nowhere near as many as the surface had. Atlantis wasn't small, but it wasn't nearly as large everything on the surface was. There were only so many people and there were so many jobs that were necessary to the peoples survival, so people found their passion in other things like cooking.

Jason loved Atlantis, but the surface was part of him too.

Feeling unsure of his place in Atlantis for the first time in his life, Jason wondered if it wasn't a part of him that he should explore more before he committed to Atlantis the way that he would have to once he was really King. 

* * *

"Dad," Jason said, head bent down as he stepped into the room. He was holding a piece of paper in his hands, reading the information over even though he'd read it a hundred times before. He was positive he was right, but there was still a small part of him that worried about bringing this information to his father and being wrong. "There have been reports of a few people going missing near the trench out East and there have been some magic fluctuations in the same area. I don't know if it's directly related to the man your searching for, but it's definitely a big enough change that it could be."

"Let me see," Arthur said. He was settled at the head of the advisers table, where he had spent most of his time since returning to Atlantis. There had been trips out of the city for investigating and searching, but a lot of time had been spent sitting in the room and piecing things together with his companions. The one called Batman seemed more familiar with investigations then the other two that had come with his father, but all of them had been working together. Right now, however, all of the other seats at the table were empty.

Jason crossed the room to the table his father was sitting at. As he did, he asked, "Where did everyone else go?"

"I sent them to sleep," Arthur said. He reached out as Jason neared, taking the paper held out to him. He let out a quiet thank you before returning to the previous conversation as he scanned over the contents. "It does none of us any good to stay up late to put together a puzzle that we don't have all the pieces for." There was a small beat before Arthur said, "Though, it looks like you've helped us find some of the pieces we need."

"I'm glad I could help." There was a moment before Jason said, "Then I'll leave that with you to look over."

"Going to bed?"

"Not yet," Jason said. Arthur looked up at him, his question written in his features. "There are a few more things I need to look at. Building proposals and citizen complaints, you know? I'll go to sleep in a little while though."

Arthur watched Jason for a moment before his expression lightened. The exhaustion and stress he was feeling was still there, but it was less than it had been. He set the papers in his hand down on the table, turning his body so he was looking completely at Jason instead of glancing at him. His voice was quiet but serious, filled with affection and the desire to make sure Jason knew the truth in his words, as he said, "You have done well while I was gone and you have continued to do well now. You have done well." He continued, expression softening even more, "I have always been proud to call you my son, do not take what I say next as a sign that I haven't been, but I am especially proud of the man you have become."

It had been years since Jason was a teenager, scared of the power he would yield and unsure if he would ever be able to hear his fathers words. It had been years since Jason doubted his parents love and pride in him.

That didn't mean that it didn't feel good to hear his father say it to him now.

"Thank you, dad."

"No," Arthur said, shaking his head just slightly. "I am your father. Loving you and being proud of you are not things to thank me for."

"Okay," Jason said. He swallowed hard, not having expected an encounter this emotional when he'd come to speak to his father. "I love you, dad."

"I love you too, Jason."

* * *

Hearing that his father was proud of him was enough to make Jason feel guilty about the doubts that had started seeping into his brain.

He always knew that leaving Atlantis hadn't ever been an option, his father would surely be heading back to the surface once everything was back where it belonged and Jason would be back on the throne when that happened, but part of him had still held onto the idea of the surface. He would come back to Atlantis, but maybe it wasn't where he was meant to be right now. And Jason knew that his father wouldn't magically stop loving him if he needed time away, but Jason couldn't bring himself to leave when his father was proud of him what he was doing in Atlantis. Changing paths wouldn't take Arthur's pride in him away, but it was his actions as King that had made his father proud and Jason couldn't bring himself to throw that away.

Still, that didn't mean the thoughts went away.

Especially once Arthur asked Jason to join him and his companions now that they were more sure about their search zone and where the enemy was hiding. The trench they suspected the man to be hiding in was large, deep, and dark. Exploring it would be a long dangerous affair.

Jason might have been a valuable person to Atlantis as it's Crown Prince, but he was also one of it's best warriors and someone that his father put implicit trust in, so Arthur had Mera take over while they left and Jason had accompanied the members of the Justice League that were around.

Jason had loved his trips to the surface, but the fact that he always had to be back in Atlantis by the end of the night meant that there was _so much_  that he hadn't seen. His time on the surface had been spent padding around boardwalks and down beaches and reading libraries that kept the windows open so the sea breeze could sweep inside. As a teenage he'd been allowed to stay out longer, but even that time had mostly been spent in his father's lighthouse, relaxing in his bed while sound of waves crushing against the rocks below lured him into sleep.

Even when he was on the surface, he never truly left the sea.

And when he was with the Justice League that was more apparent than ever.

Superman talked about the farm he had been raised on and the dog his mother owned. Jason had seen more dolphins than dogs in his life and how he'd never seen a cow or horse outside of a pictures in books. Batman was quiet, but when Superman was more than happy to talk about Gotham as well. Jason had never seen buildings like the skyscraper Superman described Gotham as having or Gargoyles statues like the ones he said sat on Gotham's oldest buildings.

More then either of them, Jason found himself stuck in what Wonder Woman told him. Because she spoke about Themyscira and London, affection her in her voice for both of her homes.

Arthur had grown up on the surface before moving to Atlantis, but he didn't speak of the surface the way Wonder Woman spoke of Themyscira. The surface was, to Arthur, a world that he had given up when he answered Atlantis' call. But to Wonder Woman, Themyscira was her home as much as London was.

To Jason, struggling with feeling as though he belonged to two places while also feeling that he didn't belong in either place, her stories were invaluable. Because while his father lived in two worlds while dismissing one of them as someplace he could never call home, Wonder Woman lived in two worlds and still considered them both to be places that she belonged. 

* * *

Jason was standing on one of the palace's balconies, hand out stretched to feed the fish that had swam near him some of the food he'd snuck out of the ballroom with him, when he heard his mother say, "Jason."

"Mom," Jason said, turning to see her.

In the aftermath of the retrieval of the artifact and the defeat of the man who had taken it, they were throwing a party. A victory celebration before the King and his friends returned to the surface.

His mother was dressed for the party, standing in the doorway wearing a long green dress instead of her usual armor. Her bright red hair was curled to frame her face and a crown more ornate than the headpiece she wore constantly sat nestled within her hair. Jason was dressed up as well, wearing a black suit that was tinted with a kelp-y green color. He was wearing one of his crowns as well, one of the ornate ones that he had had for years.

"What are you doing out here?" Jason asked. It wasn't like his mother to slip away from parties like these. They were exhausting, but Mera was the best of them at diplomacy and she often spent these parties using that skill for Atlantis' future. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," Mera dismissed. Jason had shifted as if to move towards her, but Mera waved him off. Instead, she took steps towards him, moving so she could lean against the banister next to him. "How are you, my son? You've been out here for a while."

"I'm fine," Jason said, assuring her. He hadn't realized so much time had passed. He wouldn't have stayed out so long if he did. Not only did he have a duty to stay at the party and help as much as he could with the diplomatic aspects, but he knew that his mother worried when he disappeared for too long. "I just came out for some air. I didn't realize it had been that long."

"You came out for air?" Mera questioned.

Jason found himself instantly on guard. Not because his mother would ever hurt him, but because his mother had always had the ability to tell exactly what was on his mind, even if he wasn't acknowledging it himself.

"Yes," Jason said, even though he knew it was futile. He looked away from her, turning his gaze out to the ocean around them instead. Perhaps if he didn't look her in the eye, she wouldn't be able to read his mind the way she always seemed to.

"Your being out here has nothing to do with your dad's departure?" Before Jason could say anything else, she continued, "Or the fact that you wish to go with him?"

Jason was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to address things without outright lying to someone who clearly knew how he was feeling. Then he said, "If I did feel that way, would there be any reason for me to express those feelings? Dad is leaving. I can't leave Atlantis without a ruler."

"You seem to forget that you and your dad are not the only members of this family," Mera said.

"I know, but father entrusted-"

"Temporarily. Your father entrusted the Kingdom to you temporarily. You ruling was never meant to be a permanent arrangement, Jason," Mera said. "We wanted you to get a taste for ruling, to see what it was like to be Atlantis' King rather than it's Crown Prince." She reached over to place her hand on his bicep. Jason looked over at her. "As grown as you are, Jason, you still have more growing to do. If you want to do some of that growing on the surface, neither your dad or I will stop you."

He asked, tentative, "And you would be okay with me leaving?"

Mera smiled, affection in her eyes and smile. She moved her hand from his arm to his face, cupping his jaw in her hand. "My son, there are very few things I would not be okay with as long as they made you happy."

Jason was quiet for another moment before he asked, "What if I love it there more than here? What if I never want to come back? I don't want to lose you - or dad whenever he returns to Atlantis permanently."

"You will come back. You love Atlantis, even if you wish to explore," Mera said.

"But what if I don't? What if I only love it because it's all I know."

"Even if that is the case, you will not lose your dad or I," Mera said. She rubbed her thumb under his eye, a soft comforting touch. "You are our son, Jason. You are our greatest joy and the love of both of our lives. Nothing could keep us from you."

* * *

Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman returned to the surface the morning after the party.

Arthur stayed in Atlantis for two days longer then planned. When he left, Jason was by his side.

Jason stayed with his father in the lighthouse for a few days, learning some of the basic things about the surface that he hadn't learned before. Then he left on his own, because while his father was on the surface to be a superhero, Jason was on the surface to explore and learn more about a world that he had never been apart of. He left his father's childhood home with everything necessary to establish his identity as Jason Curry, a name that had always been his but which he had never carried in Atlantis; a bank card that Batman had given him, because apparently he had a son a few years younger than Jason and if his son was in Jason's position he'd want to know he was safe and taken care of; and a phone with his father's number as well as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman's numbers since apparently his father hadn't quite gotten the hang of surface technology and was fairly likely not to answer if he called regardless of how dire the situation might be.

For a while, he took buses along the east coast of the United States, following the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He had come to the surface to see more of the world, but he had only just left his home and the idea of being away from the water right out of the gate was terrifying.

He didn't stay in one place very long, not when there was so much of the world to see, but every few days he'd find a city big enough for him to spend four or five days there. He'd explore it as much as he could, walking until his feet were sore and eating food that he'd never had before and speaking to people with stories that made him laugh and cry in equal measure.

He reached Texas about three months after leaving Maine.

Faced with the choice between dipping down into Mexico or going inland, even going straight to California would take a little longer than a day and that was only if he got lucky bus routes not to have to stop anywhere for the night, Jason decided to - for the first time in his life - go somewhere that there wouldn't be an ocean nearby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello! Back at Arthur. This chapter was supposed to focus on Jason and his relationship with Mera, but Arthur ended up taking over again. Hopefully everyone enjoyed that!
> 
> 2) I know it's kinda lazy writing to refer to something as just "the artifact" instead of making a more specific artifact, but since I'm not THAT familiar with Aquaman or the type of fantasy writing involved in Aquaman, I kinda copped out. Hopefully it didn't know anyone out of the story too badly. 
> 
> 3) I think the scene with Mera and Jason was maybe a little fast, but ultimately I like it. The "All-knowing mother" troupe can be a little exhausting sometimes, but YOLO. 
> 
> 4) Amazon!Jason and Atlantis!Jason are kinda in the same place right now? Thought Amazon!Jason is a little more settled and a little less lost if that makes sense. I promise not every Jason is going to go on journey like this. Boostle!Jason has some bigger, slightly more depressing issues to deal with once he grows up a bit!


	9. A Boy Out of Time II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone not familiar with Blue Beetle canon, this chapter has the potential to be very spoiler-y and future additions to this universe will not be any less spoiler-y.

Ted was sitting at the dining table, looking over a few papers that he had brought home from the office, when he heard the apartment door open.

Instantly he heard his Jason's voice, still childish in it's pitch and filled with excitement, as his son rambled, "-and I didn't know what to do because David told me last week that _he_  likes Amanda."

"That sounds like quite the dilemma," Michael answered. There was a soft thump before Michael added, "Shoes off and backpack on the hook, Jason. Not on the ground."

The reminder brought a small smile to Ted's face.

They had come along way in the years since they had found Jason. They were still a little goofy and a lot more relaxed about things than others their ages, but having a son had changed both of them in ways that they hadn't imagined. Ted had started taking his work as Ted Kord a little more seriously than he had been before, more focused on building his company and having money than on being a superhero. Michael had almost entirely quit working as a model, finding that he got more enjoyment out of staying home with Jason.

"Sorry, Dad," Jason said. There was shuffling as Jason started talking again, "And it's definitely a dilemma! Because if I give Amanda a note from Evan than David will be upset, but if I don't give Amanda the note than Evan will be upset!"

"I see," Michael said, and Ted could practically see him nodding as he helped Jason slip his backpack straps off his shoulders. "Well, maybe you should talk to Evan and David. I'm sure your friends will understand why you don't want to be in the middle of this if you understand."

"I can't do that!" Jason cried. "If I tell Evan that David likes Amanda too, then _they_  won't be friends with each other anymore! And I'd have to choose who to play with at recess!"

"Ah...."

Before the conversation could go any further, Jason stepped out of the entry way and into the dining room.

All thoughts of his classmates seemed leave his mind as he caught sight of Ted.

"Daddy!" he cried, a smile lighting up his face. He ran towards Ted, socked feet slipping on the kitchen tile and making him move even faster. "You're home early!"

"I am," Ted said. He pushed the chair he was sitting in out just in time to catch Jason before he ran into the chair. He tried not to think about how much it took out of him to lift an eight year old up into his lap. "One of my meetings got canceled, so I came home early."

"Since your home early, can we go out to eat today?" Jason asked, shifting a bit as he got comfortable in Ted's lap.

"Sure," Ted said. As Michael stepped into the dining room as well, he added, "As long as Dad didn't have anything planned for dinner tonight.

"I didn't," Michael said. When their eyes met, he sent Ted a smile that seemed to say 'hello' and 'I love you' all at once. He lifted his arm, showing a small manila envelope. "But I think we should look at Jason's report card before we decide to give him any rewards."

"That does sound like a good idea," Ted said. He kicked out the chair next to him for Michael. As his partner was settling down, Ted asked Jason, "How do you think you did this quarter? Have you been doing well enough for us to go out to eat tonight?"

"I think so," Jason said, legs swinging absently under him. "I never talk during silent reading and I always pass our quizzes."

"Yeah? What about social studies?"

Jason scrunched his nose. "It's boring. It all happened in the past."

"It all happened in the past _for you_ ," Michael said, fiddling with the metal prongs that sealed the envelope. "To someone else, it's happening in the present."

Noting the confusion on their son's face, Ted suggested, "We should keep the 'time in relative' speech for when he's a little older. Maybe when it's been more than two years since he learned to tell time?"

"Alright," he agreed. Ted watched as he slipped the report card out, eyes darting across it. After a moment, Michael asked, "How good do you think this has to be in order to warrant dinner?"

Ted hummed a little bit. Jason's elementary school graded on a one to four scale - with fours being the best grade. He didn't want to pressure Jason too much, especially not when he was a kid, but he wanted to encourage Jason to do his best at the same time. Finally he said, "Twos and threes are probably worth dinner, yeah?"

"Well then it looks like we're getting dinner out," Michael said, setting the paper down and sliding it over towards Ted. Jason whooped, throwing his hands up and almost tumbling backwards off Ted's lap in his excitement. Resting one hand on Jason's lower back to keep him steady, Ted glanced at the report card as Michael said, "Kid's a smarty-pants like you. Fours in everything except math."

Ted couldn't help the warmth that settled in his chest or the smile that settled on his face.

He tried not to feel anything negative towards Jason's birth parents, tried to just be grateful that they had saved their son and sent him back in time to become Ted and Michael's son, but sometimes it was nice to hear Michael make comparisons between their son and him, to have moments when they could act like Jason's traits came from them and not strangers. 

* * *

Ted had never really pictured himself as a father, but he found that being Jason's father came naturally to him.

It wasn't really easy, because no one would ever say that parenting was easy, but there was something about parenting Jason that just seemed natural.

Ted had never really enjoyed sports, but when Jason came home from school talking about wanting to join the baseball team Ted made sure it happened and gave Mary Jason's game schedule so that she could make sure not to schedule meetings on those days, because Ted was determined be at each and every one of his son's games. Despite how busy he was with Kord Industries, Ted had come close to signing up to coach Jason's team. It had been Michael that talked him out of that, reminding him that he really didn't have time for that and that Ted didn't know anything about baseball in the first place.

Ted's genius had always leaned more towards maths and sciences, but as Jason grew up and began developing a passion for the arts, Ted made sure to encourage him. When birthdays rolled around he made sure to buy the classics that Jason loved and he kept an eye on young adult book-lists for anything that Jason would like. As Jason started enjoying writing as much as he enjoyed reading, Ted made sure to keep an eye on how full Jason's notebooks were getting and slipped new ones into Jason's backpack when he thought they were about done for.

He wasn't sure how Bruce managed to balance Bruce Wayne, Batman, and being Dick Grayson's father, because being Ted Kord put so much of a strain on Ted's time that by the time Jason's tenth birthday rolled around, Ted had all but given up on being Blue Beetle. He still went out when the Justice League needed all hands on deck, but for the most part the suit hung in his workshop unused.

Ted had loved being Blue Beetle, but he loved being Jason's father more and it was important to him that he didn't miss moments in his son's life because he was trying to save the world, not when there were so many other people that could do that for him. Not when Jason _was_  his world and Ted's biggest fear was not being there to see him grow up.

Michael didn't stop being Booster Gold, couldn't really stop being Booster Gold given the way he'd come into the suit, but Michael's day jobw as more flexible than Ted's and that made it easier for them to be a family.

It made it so that they were both there to take Jason to a Broadway play, after months debate Jason had finally decided that he'd rather see The Lion King than Wicked, on his tenth birthday. It made so that when Jason's school held a 'graduation' for the fifth graders, Michael and Ted were both in the audience cheering for their son and so they were both there to tell him how proud of him they were before taking him out for ice cream. It made so that when summer ended and Jason started middle school, Ted could be finished with his work at Kord Industries early enough to eat dinner with his family before Michael left on patrol and could help Jason with his homework before he sent his son to get ready for bed.

Ted loved being Blue Beetle, but there was no part of him that regretted giving it up.

Not when giving up Blue Beetle meant getting to be with his family.

* * *

"Is this not weird for you though, Rip?"

Ted had been looking down at a pile of contracts that he'd brought home, they needed looking at but it wasn't anything that he needed to be at the office to do, but Michael's words had him looking up.

Rip and Jason were sitting on the floor in the living room with their backs against the couch as they played some kind of puzzle game that Ted wasn't paying enough attention to to properly understand. Ted and Michael were both settled into arm chairs, Ted had been focused on the contracts but Michael appeared to have been watching the boys.

"Why would this be weird?" Rip asked, still focused on the screen and the game he was playing. "Jason wants to play this game every time I come over."

"Well, sorry," Jason said, and Ted could tell that son was rolling his eyes even without being able to see his face. It was obvious from the way that he was spoke, sarcasm dripping from his words. "I can't get past the levels without you."

"I didn't say I minded playing with you," Rip said, shifting so he could bump his knee against Jason's. "I was just pointing out that there's no reason this would be weird for me."

Ted agreed with him. Perhaps a decade ago it would have been strange to see Rip in their apartment. Ted had never even met Rip before taking in Jason. He had known about him, Booster had his secrets but a time-traveling son was not something he would have kept from Ted - not when he needed Ted's help trying to process the fact that there was a boy running around the time-stream with his DNA, but as Jason grew older Rip spent more and more time in the apartment, spent more and more time with Jason, spent more and more time with the entire family.

Ted didn't know if he necessarily considered Rip his son the way he did Jason, but it was easy for Ted to see a future where Rip was his son, easy to see how this man could have been raised by himself and Michael.

"That's not what I meant," Michael said. "I just meant that right now Jason is the little brother, but you would have grown up with Jason as your older brother. Isn't that weird?"

"Not really," Rip dismissed. "I always knew it would be like this."

"You did?" Ted asked.

"Yeah," Rip said. He took a hand off his controller to gesture vaguely around himself. "All of this had happened already for you three, so it was something you talked about occasionally which meant we always knew that one day I would end up here."

Ted hummed a bit before asking, "Are there any others? Any other children we have that are going to end up in the past?"

"I can't tell you that," Rip said.

Ted couldn't help but notice the smile on Rip's face, a little soft and a little sad. 

* * *

Ted did his best not to think about what the smile that Rip gave him meant, what it meant for his future that Rip looked like that when Ted asked whether he and Michael had more children.

Instead he tried to focus on the family in front of him, tried to enjoy the small moments and what he had since he found himself wondering how long he would have it.

He focused on Michael. He focused on the mornings when they exchanged sleepy kisses before Ted had to pull away in order to make it to work on time. He focused on the afternoons when Michael came to Kord Industries to have lunch with him, when Michael chided him for eating burgers given his heart condition and Ted teased that they couldn't all have abs sharp enough to cut diamonds on. He focused on nights when Jason was staying at a friends house, when the two of them collapsed onto the couch together and were both concerned with having a moment to just breath each other in than actually touching each other.

He focused on Jason. He focused on the lazy weekend mornings when he would turn on the radio and Jason would sing along while Ted made pancakes for breakfast. He focused on the afternoons when he was home early enough that Jason came to him for help with his math and science homework, when he sat next to his son explaining algebra and the composition of a star. He focused on the evenings when they all sat on the couch, when Jason took so long to pick a movie to watch that Ted drifted towards sleep before he finally made a choice.

He focused on Rip in the moments when he wasn't giving him that sad smile. He focused on the nights when Rip came to them beaten up after a mission and the mornings afterwards when he slumped against the table in exhaustion and looked at Ted like some kind of god when he handed him a cup of coffee. He focused on the afternoons when Rip came to lunch with Michael, when the three of them sat around some table in some diner and Rip rambled to them about the things he'd been up to since the last time they'd seen him. He focused on the evenings when he came home from work to find Jason and Rip sitting in front of the TV as they played a video game together, mouths tossing brotherly insults back and forth.

He focused on the rest of his family, the ones not as close to him as his first and partner. He focused on the nights when Beatriz crashed on the couch after a long shoot, when she wanted the comfort that they brought her after having been treated like a dress-up doll for so long, and the mornings after when she pressed herself against Ted's back, complaining that he didn't make her omelets correctly even though he'd been making omelets for her for almost two years. He focused on the afternoons when he met Tora for lunch, when they traded stories about Guy and Michael, when they ranted and laughed about the men that they had chosen to love. He focused on the nights when Guy came back from a long stay on Oa, when he practically kicked the door in - dragging the girls behind him - in his eagerness to be around the people who grounded him to earth, on the card games Guy forced them all to play and the way that Jason always seemed to surprised when Bea beat him at poker even though he'd never come anywhere near beating her.

Ted spent the years focusing on this, on his family, and trying not to think about the way that Rip sometimes looked at him as though Ted was something that didn't exist in his future. 

* * *

"Dad! Dad! You will not believe where Dad took me for my first trip!" Jason exclaimed.

"I'm pretty sure I will believe it considering Dad and I talked about it before he took you," Ted said.

He had been stirring spaghetti sauce, but he was happy to look away from the pot and over at his son, to let his eyes roam over Jason and check that his son was okay. It wasn't that he thought Jason wasn't safe with Michael, it was just that time travel was unpredictable and the Jurassic era was dangerous and Ted couldn't help worrying that something unexpected was going to happen during Jason's first trip.

At fifteen, Jason was rapidly catching up to his father's in height and starting to build muscle like Michael's. He'd gone through a phase in middle school where he refused to cut his hair, but shortly after starting high school he'd decided that he preferred to keep it cropped short and styled like Michael's.

Ted had designed Jason's suit, using Michael's as a reference to make sure the materials were enough to keep his son from being ripped apart by the time stream. He'd kept the coloring of Michael's suit as well, the dark navy blue and eye catching gold, but kept the costume a little looser than Michael's. He didn't see a point in their fifteen year old wearing the same skin-tight suit as Michael.

There was a tiny piece of Ted that had been upset when Jason had first started expressing an interest in time traveling. It wasn't like Ted actually wanted or expected Jason to take on the Blue Beetle mantle, but there had still been some part of him a little disgruntled that Jason had leaned towards Michael instead.

That had been swept away quickly, though, because there was no point in him getting jealous over Jason wanting to time travel like Michael. It had been time travel that brought their family together, which brought Michael and Jason to a time where Ted existed, and Ted couldn't begrudge Jason for wanting to be involved in that. And it wasn't fair to Michael to get upset just because Jason wanted to follow in his footsteps instead of Ted's.

When he was satisfied that Jason's suit didn't have any tears in it and that Jason wasn't covered in bruises or scratches, Ted said, "But knowing where Dad was taking you doesn't mean I know what happened while you were there. Why don't you sit down and you can tell me all about it while I finish dinner?"

"Okay," Jason said, excitement leading to easy agreement.

As Jason settled in, Ted looked up at the doorway.

Michael was standing there, arms folded as he leaned against the wood.

Ted caught his eye and raised one eyebrow, questioning.

Michael smiled at him, flashing two thumbs up.

Ted let out a breath he didn't known he was holding, finding that nothing reassured him quite like Michael giving his approval of his and Jason's adventure. 

* * *

When a shipment of Kryptonite goes missing from one of Kord Industries warehouses, Ted didn't really hesitate to pull the Blue Beetle suit on. He hadn't used it in a while, not since the last time the Justice League needed him, but Jason was fifteen and spent almost as much time out with his friends as he did at the house. Jason was old enough that Ted didn't really worry about leaving him home alone for a little while.

He didn't think much about putting the suit back on at all.

Not until Michael got hurt trying to help him.

He regretted it, a little bit, when he was standing in the doorway of Michael's hospital room, watching as Michael slept in his hospital bed and Jason slept in a chair next to him, bent over with his head on Michael's abdomen.

But at that point, it had already become obvious to Ted that he couldn't just let the theft slide. Stolen Kryptonite a big deal all by itself, but it had become readily apparent during their investigation that something else was going on and Ted couldn't just drop this.

He regretted it a lot more when he was staring down the barrel of Max's gun, already knowing what he had to say to Max's request for him to switch sides and already knowing that his answer meant he'd never get to see his son turn sixteen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello again everyone! Hopefully you all enjoyed Boostle p2, especially since it takes a different path than the last two chapters have. This Jason is nowhere near where Atlantean!Jason and Amazon!Jason are. And this entire universe focuses more on Jason's parents than it does Jason himself - it's almost entirely told in Ted and Michael's POVs.
> 
> 2) If anyone who is actually familiar with Booster and Rip canon could just....ignore some of the time-traveling things being ignored here that would be great and make the story a lot more fun for all of us I'm sure.


	10. Twin Arrows II

"Roy," Jason said, practically screeching as he burst into the apartment. Oliver followed after him at a more sedate pace, lacking the enthusiasm that was etched into every line of Jason's body. "Roy, wake the fuck up! The coolest shit ever happened on patrol and I've got to rub it in your face."

"You don't have to shout. I'm already awake."

Oliver frowned as he followed Jason into the living room.

Roy was sitting on the floor in a pair of ratty purple and orange stripped sweatpants and a black tank top. When they were coming into the building Oliver had seen the light on in their apartment, but he 'd assumed Roy had left it on when he went to bed. Now it was obvious that it was on so that Roy could see as he played with the collection of metal and wires he had sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

"And we will be talking about that," Oliver said.

He had the boys switch off on nights as Speedy so that they would both have a few days to unwind and rest properly. He didn't like Roy staying up this late on one of his nights off.

"Who cares about that?" Jason said before Roy could respond. "I got to work with Wonder Woman today! _And_  she said that I did a good job."

Roy gasped. He'd been focused on the wires in his hands, but now he looked up and over at the two of them. His face was painted with a mixture of offense and jealousy.

"Ollie!" Roy exclaimed. "If you were going to hang out with Wonder Woman, why didn't you let me come with?"

"Because you aren't cool enough to work with Wonder Woman," Jason said, voice light and lofty.

Oliver wondered, for a moment, if he had sixteen year olds or six year olds.

"I wasn't planning on working with Wonder Woman tonight. It just happened," Oliver said. Diana showing up in Starling City had been unexpected, but Oliver had talked to her while Jason was busy gaping at her, star struck and in awe, and found out that they were both tracking similar events. The night had been spent working together to take down the men that had been causing trouble for both of them. "And even if I had known I was working with her, I wouldn't have called you in on your night off unless we really needed the help. I didn't call Jason in when you and I worked with Superman."

Roy and Jason made faces at him, both of looking offended by his words.

"Ollie," Jason said, sounding as if Oliver had just said something that offended him on a deep and highly personal level. "How could you say something like that? How could you imply that _Superman_  is anywhere near as cool as _Wonder Woman_?"

Despite the looks that they were giving him, Oliver found himself thinking about his friends and asking, "Is he not?"

"No!" the boys objected, speaking in perfect unison. Oliver found himself a little impressed. As much time as the boys spent together, they were so different that it was rare for them to speak at the same time. They were different boys with different thought processes and while they usually reached similar conclusions it was rarely at exactly the same time.

"Of course they aren't!" Roy insisted.

"No one is as cool as Wonder Woman!" Jason said. "She's the coolest member of the Justice League, Ollie. Everyone knows that!"

Oliver hadn't known that, but the boys made fun of him enough for being old without him giving them more fuel by acknowledging that he didn't know that all of the kids thought Wonder Woman was the coolest.

He didn't really think it was that absurd, Diana _was_  pretty awesome, but he still found himself asking, "Where do I rank in this hierarchy?"

"I'd say your in my top five," Roy told him. "Probably after Dinah, but before the Flash and Blue Beetle even though I really admire both of their brains."

"I can live with that."

"Yeah, well, I hope so. Because you're definitely lower on Jason's list."

Oliver glanced over at Jason, "Really?"

"Uh, yeah," Jason said. "I mean the Justice League has Wonder Woman, Dinah, Hawkgirl, _and_  Zatanna. You definitely aren't cooler than any of them. And I lived in Gotham the first half of my life you know, so I think Batman is pretty cool. I even met him when I was like eight, you know? And then there's the Flash! And Justice League International has Fire and Ice, plus the European team has Silver Sorceress and-"

"Okay, okay I get it," Oliver cut off. He thought, briefly, about how proud Dinah would be if she were here and heard Jason. They all knew how much respect Jason had for strong women, mostly because he had lived his early childhood watching his mother fall apart despite how strong he had perceived her as being, and Dinah was always happy to point to his son when trying to fix Oliver's occasionally misogynistic behavior. Tentatively, he put forward, "Top Fifteen?"

Jason made a face. He returned with, "More like Top Twenty."

The worst part was that he didn't even sound _that_  certain about it. 

* * *

Oliver knew that letting his son's be his sidekicks probably wasn't the best parenting in the world, but it was archery and superhero-ing that had brought his son's to him and Oliver wasn't going to tell them not to do it anymore.

And, if he were being completely honest, he enjoyed the time that he got to spend with them while they were on their patrols.

He liked sitting to the side as they trained, letting the boys competitive natures rile them up in brotherly competition before Oliver interrupted and put them both to shame. He liked seeing Roy's face light up when he gave Oliver some weapon that he'd designed and Oliver praised him for it. He liked hearing the happy, teasing lithe of Jason's voice when Oliver tried to help him with his martial arts stances and Jason responded with quips about Oliver's age even as he complied. He liked listening to Roy ramble during stake-outs, quiet only in the moments when Oliver nudged him because things were happening now and they absolutely had to be quiet in order to not get caught. He liked the way that Jason would hang off him on the way home from one, insisting that Oliver absolutely had to take him to a diner and buy him food before they went home because he was famished and he wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't buy him food first. He liked the nights when Roy fell asleep on their way back home, exhausted from all of the work they'd done but feeling safe and comfortable in Oliver's presence. He liked the nights when Jason sung quietly along with the radio as they made their way back to the apartment, sleepy but his voice warm as he mumbled lyrics.

Oliver did his best to set out time for his son's in the daylight hours, but some days were easier than others.

Sometimes he could leave for work late enough to eat breakfast with them before they went to school, to argue with Roy over whether he could have waffles for the fourth day in a row and warn Jason not to drink the last of the milk. Sometimes he left so early that the boys had only been asleep for two or three hours and he had to creep around to keep from waking them. Sometimes Oliver had time between meetings to pick the boys up from school and take them out for food, usually for burgers at greasy diners where the boys flashed grins that had waitresses cooing at them and giving them free slices of apple pie. Sometimes Oliver couldn't get away until it was so late that dinner they had made, because both of them insisted that Oliver didn't need to hire a chef to come in just to cook for them, was cold on the stove. Sometimes he made it home early enough to sit in the living room with them while they worked on their homework and listen to them tell them about his days. Sometimes he got away from the company so late that he heard about the boys' days not from them, but from Dinah, who sometimes spent Oliver's long days watching over them, while the two of them were lying in bed together.

No matter how long his days were, though, Oliver knew that he would have nights with the boys.

Maybe it was bad, selfish parenting, but Oliver couldn't bring himself to give up that time with them. 

* * *

"Should we extend an invitation to Speedy?" Wonder Woman asked. "They are the only one of the children who we haven't asked already, correct? Is the offer something that Speedy would be interested in, Green Arrow?"

Oliver had spent most of the Justice League meeting looking down at his phone. The boys had started drivers training recently and today was their first time on the road. Both of them were texting him complaints during the other's turn at the wheel - Jason drove too fast, Roy took corners too sharply, both of them used rolling stops at stop signs.

At the sound of his boys' code name, however, Oliver looked up.

He could feel everyone looking at him, waiting for him to answer Wonder Woman's question.

He looked at Dinah, sitting next to him in her Black Canary uniform. She knew exactly why he had been so distracted today, she had had dinner with them at the apartment the night before and had heard all about how excited the boys were for their first official time behind a wheel, and she smiled at him, knowing and a little affectionate, as she explained, "We've been talking about the Teen Titans."

"Oh," Oliver said. He thought about the boys. He knew they were talking about setting the Titans up in San Francisco, in part because Robin was running the show and was eager to get as far from Batman as possible. Oliver would miss the boys if they were that far from Star City, but he knew that they would both love the opportunity to meet more heroes their age and get more involved. "Yeah, they'd love to join." Then as an after thought, he added, "As long as the offer is for both of them. I don't think either of them would want to join without the other."

"It's for both of them," Batman said.

"Then yeah," Oliver said, nodding a bit. "They'd definitely be interested."

A long silence stretched.

Then The Flash spoke, a little unsure, "What do you guys mean when you say 'both of them?'"

"Uh I mean both of them?" Oliver said. He looked around the room, hoping that someone would clarify the confusion for him only to find that most of the room looked just as confused as the Flash. The only exceptions were Batman, the Martian, and Dinah. Most of them didn't look quite as visibly off-balance as the Flash and Superman did, but there were traces of surprise in all of their faces.

"I don't think they realized there are two of them," Dinah remarked.

Oliver looked at her, trying to process what she was suggesting.

He supposed it wasn't that odd for someone to have multiple encounters with the boys as Speedy and not realize that it wasn't always the same boy in the costume. Oliver didn't have any trouble telling the boys apart in the costume, but Oliver was also incredibly familiar with their mannerisms. To someone who didn't know them, he supposed that it might be easy to just see red hair and bright eyes on a muscular teenager and think that it was the same kid.

But... well, everyone in the Justice League knew his identity, just like he knew all of theirs. And the media had made sure that everyone on the planet knew about Oliver Queen's wards. There had been articles from liberal papers praising him for making the boys lives better, articles from conservative papers lamenting on how he was going to drag the boys down with his sinful ways as well as how he and Bruce Wayne should stop treating orphans like accessories, and teenage tabloids debating how attractive his sons were and where they fit compared to other rich kids their age - Oliver had listened to Roy crow about how he'd gotten a higher ranking than Jason for weeks.

The idea that none of them had put together the pieces - that none of them had realized that Oliver having two son's likely meant there was something going on with the Speedy situation - was absurd.

Oliver couldn't help the way he burst into laughter as he realized that he was sitting in a room full of brilliant people and not a single one of them had put the pieces together - or at least no one who didn't know the boys personally or have the ability to read Oliver's mind.

As he laughed, he realized that he was absolutely going to have to tell the boys this once they all got home.

They would revel in the knowledge that they'd pulled one over on most of the Justice League _without even trying._

* * *

That afternoon, instead of the driver - an employee with the boys had argued against at first but stopped once Oliver explained to them that it wasn't safe for the heirs apparent to a company as big as Queen Industries to take the bus or walk to their destinations - picking the boys up from their lesson, Oliver drove over and picked them up himself.

The boys weren't technically supposed to be driving yet, they were supposed to have another road lesson before getting pink slips, but Oliver agreed to let them drive back to the apartment. While the boys argued about who was going to drive today and who would get to drive next time, Oliver ordered them all take-out to pick up on the way. They spent the drive, Roy in the driver seat and Jason pouting in the back, talking about all of the things the boy had texted Oliver about, the radio drowned out by the boys passionate defenses of their abilities and Oliver's laughter.

At the apartment, the three of them sat around the kitchen island with their Chinese food and Oliver told them about what had happened at the Justice League. He listened to the boys delighted laughter as Oliver told them that the other members hadn't realized they weren't the same kid and he answered all of their eager questions about what each member had looked like.

And then, once everyone had eaten and things had calmed down a bit, they started talking about the offer for the boys to join the Teen Titans - if the boys wanted to do it and what arrangements could be made to make that a possibility. Because the other Titans had all either graduated from high school or came from Atlantis, Jason and Roy were only sixteen going on seventeen and there were certain things that needed to be arranged if they were going to move to San Francisco to be superheroes.

It was a conversation that lasted a few weeks, because even with the boys giving a very firm 'yes' when it came to joining the team, there was a lot to figure out in preparation for that actually being possible.

In the end they decided that the boys would finish off high school through an online program for gifted children, because Oliver knew how bored they sometimes got with their current school and thought it was a much better alternative to putting them in a school San Francisco. The boys could live in the Tower being built for the other members of the team, but Oliver expected regular check-in calls to himself, or Dinah if he couldn't answer for some reason. They had to come back for at least two weekends a month, not just for training but also just so they could all spend sometime together. And if either of them slacked off in school or ended up with an arrest on their permanent record, they were coming right off the Titans roster and returning home.

The boys had fussed about somethings - Jason thought it was ridiculous for Oliver to expect that they'd have time to call him _every day_  given that they were moving to join a Superhero team while Roy thought that it was absurd for Oliver to pull them off the team immediately if they got in trouble with the law since there was so many minor offenses that they might have incurred - but they agreed to most of Oliver's terms readily.

Oliver found himself particularly comforted that they didn't have a problem with coming back home for a couple of weekends. While the three of them had building a family together for almost three years, they hadn't even hit the one year mark of them living with him. Oliver knew they taking the boys in when they were late into their teenage years meant that they wouldn't spend very much time in his house with him, but he enjoyed having the boys with him now and he wasn't so eager for them to be out of the house completely already.

Before the boys had lived with him, Oliver had found himself jealous of Bruce and his ability to look after Dick.

Now, Oliver found that there was some part of him that pitied Bruce.

Because everyone knew that half of the reason the Titans were forming was because Dick needed some space away from Bruce, because the two of them had been clashing and arguing a lot as Dick forged his own path in both the real world and the world of superheroes.

Oliver thought about how much he was struggling with the idea of Jason and Roy leaving the nest after only three years of knowing them.

He couldn't imagine how much worst this entire situation had to be for Bruce, who had not only been taking care of Dick longer then Oliver had been taking care of his boys but who was sending Dick off to San Francisco with their relationship fracturing and no guarantee that Dick would come visit the way Roy and Jason were willing to. 

* * *

"Alright, if that's everything then I guess I'll head out," Oliver said. He and the boys were standing in the recently finished Titan's Tower, outside the door of what was now Jason's bedroom. He hadn't brought his entire book collection, but he'd brought enough that they put moving his things off until after Roy's. "Let you guys settle in and spend sometime with the team."

"Sounds like a plan," Roy said.

Jason nodded his agreement, humming a bit.

No one moved.

Oliver felt a rush of affection and relief, a familiar love for his sons and a burst of happiness that came with knowing that they weren't exactly eager to get rid of him. Oliver knew that they didn't hate him, but he also knew that the boys had spent the last several months talking about how excited they were to join the Titans. He had known on some level that their excitement over this didn't mean that they were particular eager to be away from him, but there was an anxiety in letting his son's go that he hadn't been able to stomp down. He and Dinah had had quite a few late night conversations about that.

"Okay, give me a hug and then I'll head out," Oliver said.

Hugs weren't something they did often, when it came to physical affection Oliver tended more towards patting shoulders and ruffling hair, but they hugged occasionally. Usually after a tough battle, when Oliver put his arms around one or both of the boys and tugged them in so he could remember that they were there with him, safe and alive and whole.

Jason and Roy both pulled faces, but neither of them hesitated to shift forward.

Oliver wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them in closer. The boys reached up, hugging him back the best that they could given that there were three of them crowded together.

He took a deep breath. There was a part of him that wanted to hold onto the boys forever, but he knew he couldn't. So instead he took the moment to ramp himself up to releasing his hold on them, to make himself feel better about letting go.

As he was preparing himself for the separation, he heard a noise at the other end of the hall.

He glanced up just in time to catch a glimpse of Dick Grayson's face, thunderous and stricken at the same time, before the boy disappeared, turning around and returning the way he'd come.

Oliver had thought a lot about Bruce since deciding the boys would join the Titans, considering what it had to be like for Bruce to be in a situation so similar and yet so different from his own, but now - with the boys in his arms - he found himself wondering about Dick Grayson. He found himself wondering what it was like for Dick to see Oliver helping his boys or Barry helping Wally when Bruce was nowhere to be found. He wondered what it was like to feel so suffocated by your father's shadow that you felt you had to pull away from the support of your family and strike out on your own.

"Alright," Roy said, wiggling in Oliver's hold. "Enough of this. It's getting too sappy, Ollie."

Oliver let out a laugh, focusing back on the boys in his arms.

He squeezed the boys tighter for just a moment, enjoying the way the boys groaned as he did.

"Okay," he said as he released his grip. "I'll go now. Call me tonight so I know you're settling in okay."

"We will," Jason said.

"You better, it's part of our deal."

In his head Oliver thought, _I love you both._

He didn't say it out loud. 

* * *

The boys hadn't lived with Oliver very long, but it had been long enough that the apartment felt empty and too quiet without them there. It threw Oliver, who had lived in the apartment for years before meeting the boys without feeling so alone in it.

Oliver found himself feeling more relieved then ever about the terms that they had set up, because he was pretty sure he would have gone crazy just rattling around the apartment.

Things felt more normal when the boys called him for their nightly call, especially when Oliver had spent the entire day hearing about the Titans' latest adventure on the news and sitting in silence as his mind ran wild with concern. He knew someone would have called him if the boys were injured, but there was something reassuring about talking to the boys on the phone and hearing from their own mouths that they were in one piece. It helped that when the silence in the house started feeling suffocating, a weekend would roll around and the boys would spill into it with their loud voices and brother-ly arguments, a weekend would roll around and things would feel normal again.

Still as affected as Oliver was by the change, he found that he didn't really regret it.

Not when the boys spoke about their time with the Titans' so fondly, not when Roy talked about Dick and Wally as if they had been his friends for ages and Jason spoke about Donna as if she was the most beautiful person he had met. Not when Roy and Jason came home so excited to show him things that they had been practicing and grinned at him, teeth showing and cheeks flushed with pride, as they waited to hear his opinion. Not when Jason and Roy talked about the missions they had been on and the people they had saved and were clearly so _proud_  of what they were accomplishing on their own.

Oliver missed them, but he was happy that the path they had taken was one that pleased them so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) And we're back again with daddy Ollie. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter! Esp since Roy's life is not all sunshine and roses which will put some strain on some things in this fic :)
> 
> 2) Unlike in other universes, this Jason is a very short divergence away from being canon divergence! You may have picked up on that in sections 1 and 3. In this universe, Jason is eight instead of 13 when he steals Bruce's tires. He gets thrown back into the system like he does in canon, but Bruce never adopts him afterwards because by the time Bruce goes to check on Jason, social workers have found a relation in Broken Bow and Jason's moved out with him and Roy. 
> 
> 3) You'll notice I've changed the way the Titans form a lot. Mostly in making it a thing the Justice League puts together for the kids rather than the kids just kinda doing their own thing. Or rather - a combination of the two, rather I guess. Probably Dick and Wally being like "We're doing this" and the Justice League groaning a lot and finding a way to make it safe for them.


	11. A Boy Made of Love and Will II

Hal pressed his lips together as he swept his gaze across the tray sitting on the counter in front of him, trying to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.

The breakfast that he'd spent the morning making was spread out on it. He'd tried to make crepes since Carol liked them so much, but that had been a failure of epic portions and he'd settled for blueberry pancakes instead. There were three links of sausage since Carol preferred it to bacon and a small cup of apple and orange slices. He'd put all of the food on the plate that Jason had made in daycare earlier that week. It had been white originally, but Jason had slathered the entire plate in Star Sapphire hot pink before drawing messy light pink hearts on it as well. In the center one of Jason's teachers had written 'Happy Mother's Day!' in swooping black letters.

One of the top corners had a tall glass of apple juice. The other held a small gift wrapped package, Hal's own gift for Carol this year.

"Alright. I think we've got everything," he said. Turning away from the counter, he looked back at Jason, "What do you think, little guy? You ready to go see Mama?"

Jason was sitting in his high chair, fingers picking at the cheerios that Hal had given him. His dark hair, the same inky black as Carol's, was a mess of curls on the top of his head. At four years old, he was pretty good at eating without Hal having to help him but things had clearly gotten messy while Hal was focused on breakfast because there were cheerios in his hair now.

"Yes!" Jason said, blues eyes bright and happy. A happy smile settling on his lips. "I wanna see Mama!"

Hal couldn't stop the laugh that fell from his lips. Jason was the biggest Mama's boy that Hal had ever met. Oh, Jason was always happy to see Hal and spend time with his daddy. But there was no one on the planet that he loved as much as he loved his mother. It wasn't that surprising given that Carol was his primary caregiver. Hal wasn't anything close to an absent parent, but Hal's duties for the Green Lantern Corps took him off planet while Carol's duties for the Star Sapphires never took her off planet so she was rarely away from Jason for more than a few hours at a time.

Hal couldn't really blame him for loving Carol so much anyway.

He was probably the only person on the planet that loved Carol more than Jason did.

"Alright then, big boy." Hal crossed the space to the high chair. Though excited, Jason stayed still and waited for Hal to undo the latches on his the chair. He had learned pretty quickly that fussing would just mean he had to stay there longer while they tried to get him out while avoiding wayward limbs. He settled Jason on his hip for a moment after grabbing him up, "Don't run off once I put you down, alright? Daddy's gonna grab Mama's breakfast and then we can walk to Mama and Daddy's room together."

"Okay!"

Hal watched his son for a moment, trying to figure out if Jason was going to listen or if he was going to take off the second Hal put him down. Jason alternated between being the best and worst behaved kid that Hal knew. Depending on what he was doing, Hal flipped between finding it incredibly amusing and incredibly frustrating.

"Alright. Down you go then."

He considered it a victory when Jason didn't take off.

Turning away from his son, he grabbed the tray off the counter.

He had barely made it around the island before Jason said, "Daddy!"

"Yeah buddy?" Hal asked, looking down at the toddler next to him.

"I wanna help!"

"Okay," Hal agreed. He crouched down to Jason's height, careful of the weight in his hands so that breakfast didn't scatter all over the floor. "Why don't you carry Mama's juice? Then I don't have to worry about spilling it."

"Yeah! I can do that!"

* * *

As Jason grew into himself, Hal found himself constantly amazed by his son.

Hal knew he wasn't the smartest guy, he wasn't dumb but he had always hung around the average in his classes. Jason was an entirely different. His son was smart, vocabulary expanding quickly even as he struggled to put the sentences together. He always wanted Carol and Hal to tell him stories, demanding they read to him not only at bedtime but also in the middle of the day. He always had six thousand questions to ask about the world, demanding to know why everything was the way it was.

Hal could admit to finding it a little irritating occasionally. Sometimes he wanted to take Jason to the park without having to explain hibernation or animal immigration to him. Sometimes he wanted to read Jason a story without arguing with him about it being bedtime and that meaning that no, he couldn't have another story. Mostly, though, Hal was just incredibly proud of his son.

Not only was Jason smart, but as his personality developed it became increasingly obvious that he was kind and just. He was a little hot headed, quick to answer when something he saw as unfair was happening, but so was Hal, but his temper was usually only a problem when something bumped against his kindness and sense of justice. The only time Jason had gotten anything less than a glowing review from his daycare instructors was when he'd pushed a kid who had been stealing oreos from one of his friends at snack time.

Filled with pride for his son, Hal became the exact type of father that he had never imagined himself becoming. When he had lunch with John and Guy on Oa, he would spend the first several minutes talking to John about all the amazing things Jason had done since the last time they spoke. His text threads with his brothers were flooded with pictures of Jason. Jim made fun of him for it after Jason's second birthday, saying that most father's grew out of constantly taking photos before their kids were toddlers, but Hal had ignored him.

Hal had never imagined being a dad. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to be a father, there had been moments with his nieces and nephews where he thought it would be nice to have a child of his own, just that he had never imagined his life being in a place where he was happy being stationary enough to set down his roots. So if Hal wanted to talk about his son and brag about this thing that he thought he'd never have, then he was going to do just that for as long as he wanted. 

* * *

"Right, Hal?"

Hal had been looking down at his phone, but at the sound of his name he looked up. "What?" John and Guy, squeezed together on the other side of the table, sent him identical looks of amusement. Feeling a little attacked by John's soft bemused smile and Guy's wild grin, Hal repeated, a bit more aggressively, "What?"

It was rare that the three of them were all on Earth at the same time given that Guy was stationed on Oa while John and Hal switched off patrol of their sector, the two of them only ever on the same planet for a day or two at a time. So when they'd figured out that this week was one of the rare times when they would all be on their home planet, they'd agreed to go out for a late breakfast. Figuring out where to go was a bit difficult since they all lived in different areas of the country, but there was a place close to John's mother's house that he'd mentioned before so they'd agreed that Guy and Hal would fly to John's apartment in Detroit.

Now they were sitting in a booth at the tiny diner that John had directed them to.

Hal had a gigantic omelet sitting in front of him, only a few bites taken out of it.

"Is something going on?" John asked, lips still pulled up in that infuriating smile as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips. "You've been pretty focused on your phone."

"You haven't said more then ten words since we got here," Guy observed. "Which is pretty unusual for you."

Hal pulled a face at Guy before focusing on John. "Nothing's wrong if that's what your asking."

"It's not. You wouldn't still be here if something was wrong." John said, "I figure whatever's caught your attention isn't a bad thing, just a something."

Hal hummed a bit. He cut a glance down at his phone again, checking to see if Carol had texted him, before looking back up.

"Today is Jason's first day of Kindergarten," Hal said. "I was at school with him until I came to meet up with you guys."

Guy made a soft sound of surprise as he moved to get a bite of the blueberry crepes he'd ordered. "Damn. He's going to school already? It seems like just yesterday we were watching him learn to walk."

"Yeah." A note of sadness settled in Hal's voice. A few years ago, he had laughed at Jim for talking about Jane's seventh birthday as if it was the end of the world. Now he understood exactly how his brother had felt. His son was growing up much too quickly for Hal.

"Was he crying when you left?" John asked.

"No," Hal admitted. "He was so excited to go to school that he practically pulled Carol and I out of the door this morning. And once we were there, he made himself comfortable right away. We stuck around for a while to make sure he was okay, but he didn't really seem to care when we left."

"That's not that surprising," Guy said. "He's a smart kid. He's probably going to love school."

John nodded a bit, saying, "I don't really think you have anything to worry about." When Hal just hummed rather than saying anything, John added, "But I guess that doesn't really make you stop worrying, does it?"

Hal gave John a small smile. "Not even a little bit."

* * *

John wasn't wrong when he said that Jason was going to love school.

Jason practically hoped out of bed every morning, never giving Carol or Hal any trouble when it came to getting around for school. Jason spent every trip home from school rambling about all of the super cool things that he'd done that day. He sat at the dining room table afterwards every day, eating apple slices while he worked on the homework he'd gotten. It was always simply things, like drawing his family or practicing his spelling words, but Jason focused on each one with an almost single-minded intensity.

Hal had known he would like it, but he'd anticipated that some of the shine would wear off as time went on. That was not the case as all. If anything, Jason grew to like school more and more as time went on, as he realized just how much he would get to learn while he was in school and absorbed what his teachers told him like a sponge.

With Jason in school, Hal found himself feeling more and more like his son was growing up far too fast.

One minute Jason was in kindergarten and Hal was tracing his son's palm on a piece of construction paper before helping him color it like a turkey for the classes Thanksgiving party. Hal was pushing a shopping cart down the grocery aisle, listening to Jason debate what he wanted to bring for his classes stone soup recipe. Hal was cutting up a soda bottle while Carol and Jason prepared the soil and seeds Jason was going to grow out of it. Hal was helping his son tape candy to valentines for the class party, watching as his son blushed and added an extra sucker to the card for his first crush. Hal was sitting in the stands for Jason's first baseball game, cheering with Carol every time he stepped up to the plate or caught the ball.

Then he blinked, Jason was in fifth grade, and Hal was helping Jason and Carol fold paper airplanes for Jason's science fair project on aerodynamics, inspired by his parents jobs and all the time he spent at the airfield with them. Hal was taking Jason out for ice cream after state testing day, listening to his son talk about which subjects he'd found difficult and which ones he'd found easy. Hal was watching Jason run around in the mask he'd made an art class, paper mache something that only the older students were allowed to play with. Hal was begging John and Guy to let Jason interview them for the report he was doing about superheros during his English lessons. Hal was arguing with him about whether or not he could go to the movies with his friends without Hal or Carol coming along.

Hal wasn't ashamed to admit that when the elementary school hosted a make-shift graduation ceremony for the fifth graders, he cried watching Jason receive the certificate and rose that they gave him. 

* * *

"Dad, can I ask you something?"

Hal looked up from his food and at his son.

The two of them were sitting in a restaurant near their apartment. Whenever Hal had been off world for a particularly long period of time, he would pick Jason up from school and bring him here for a father-son lunch.

Jason was sitting across from him in their usual booth, a thick strawberry milkshake and a plate of chicken tenders sitting in front of him. At thirteen years old, his black hair had a shine to it that was vague greasy and there was a spot of acne broken out along his jaw. Puberty had spared him the lanky body that most of his classmates had, though. He was tall for his age, but instead of staying skinny like most other boys his age he had begun to fill out in the shoulders.

Hal took in the tense set of his shoulders and the nervous look in his blue eyes.

It was a stark contrast to the excitement that he'd been displaying when talking about his recent baseball game just a few moments ago.

"Yeah," Hal said, wondering what it was that had his son so on edge. Jason was a good kid. He seemed to be friends with every kid he knew, got good grades, played sports and was in the drama club, and only ever got detention when he was standing up for people being bullied. But Hal couldn't help feeling a bit on edge, concerned with what would make Jason feel like this. "Of course you can."

Jason was quiet for a moment before looking down at his place. His voice was soft, quiet and unsure, as he asked, "Is it....Is it okay to like boys? The same way that I like girls?"

 _Oh,_  Hal thought. _Oh._

He felt a flash of disappointment in himself, a flash of anger for not having done something to make it clear to Jason that this was okay, for not having acknowledged the possibility that Jason would like boys.

"That's fine," Hal said. Then, regretting his choice of words, he said, "That's more than fine. That's perfectly okay, Jason. Some boys like boys and some boys like girls and some boys like boys and girls. All of that is normal. All of that is okay."

Jason went silent again. Then he peeked up at Hal, not exactly looking up at him but peeking at him. "Really?"

"Yeah." Thinking about what had led them to this conversation, Hal asked, "Is there a boy you like? Someone on the baseball team with you?" A blush fell across Jason's face, bright red and embarrassed. Before he could fumble out a denial, Hal grinned and teased, "Oh, there is. Is it someone I know? Or a new kid?"

"It's no one," Jason denied, face growing redder.

"You are lying through your teeth." Hal knew exactly what his son was like when he was lying about something that embarrassed him. They'd done this song and dance for girls that Jason liked in elementary school. "Which makes me think it's probably someone I know, because I don't think you'd be this secretive with me if it wasn't someone I knew."

Hal leaned forward, grinning because this was the easy bit.

Teasing his son, being there for his son, loving his son?

Those were the easy parts of parenting. 

* * *

Before Hal knew it, Jason had passed through the awkward stages of puberty and come into himself.

He grew up big like Hal, tall and broad in the shoulders. He was smart and kind, charming in an effortless kind of way.

Hal joked that Jason's brain came from Carol while the charm came from him. Carol liked to laugh in his face when he said it, telling him that he had never been charming. Hal would reach for her in those moments, pulling her close to him and informing her that it had worked on her. Jason would gag while he did so and object to his parents kissing in front of him as if he was still a child rather than a teenager.

He had found what he liked to do with his life.

He dropped baseball in his second year of high school to focus on drama instead. He liked baseball, he told them, but he liked acting more. Hal knew less about theater than he did about baseball, but he made sure to listen to everything Jason told him about the productions and he went to as many of them as possible. He sat next to Carol through Romeo and Juliet, through Les Miserables, through Almost Maine, and Into the Woods. He liked most of them, but even the ones that he didn't had him feeling pride in Jason as he watched his son move around a stage.

He dated the men's soccer team's goalie throughout his Sophomore year, a pretty boy a year older than him named Matthew with short red hair and freckles covering the bridge of his nose. When they broke up in the middle of summer before junior year, Jason crawled into bed with him and Carol, curling between his parents and sobbing over his first real heartbreak while Carol ran a hand through his hair and Hal murmured stories about his own past heartbreaks so Jason would know it would be okay. He spent the second half of his Junior and Senior year dating the girl, Jasmine, who had played opposite him in so many of their high school plays, another red head. Hal liked her. More than that, he was happy to see Jason moving past the first heartbreak of his life and finding finding someone else to love.

He decided he wanted to go to the Air Force academy and major in aerospace engineering. He wanted to fly like his father did, wanted to help people like Carol and Hal both did. He wasn't a superhero, but he hoped he could do something to make them proud while in the Air Force.

Hal made it clear that he was already proud of him.

When Jason's senior year came to a close, Hal whistled and cheered and screamed as his son crossed the stage to receive his diploma. And if he cried once Jason had sat back down, then Carol didn't mention it. She just twisted their fingers together and smiled at him, proud and sad all at once.

 

 

 

Cyborg Superman and Mongul attacked Coast City later that summer, shortly after Jason left for Colorado.

Jason and Carol were both out of the city when it was destroyed, but that didn't stop Hal from feeling torn in two by the loss of his home, from the destruction of the place were he had raised his son, from the death of children Jason had gone to school with and people he had passed every day in his life.

And when the guardians turned against him for wanting some of that back, Hal found himself driven into madness.

Hal found himself driven into becoming Parallax.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello! I feel like its been a long time. Probably because it has been? Apologies for that. Hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter! I know a lot of you liked the first section of this story. 
> 
> 2) This chapter has Jason moving through his life pretty quickly. I try to pace things differently to focus on different parts of his life throughout the different stories. Hopefully you all enjoyed this? 
> 
> 3) The end of this chapter might require some research for anyone unfamiliar with the Corps and the Parallax situation, but if you don't know then I wouldn't worry about it too much? In summary: at the end of this chapter Coast City is a crater in the ground, Hal Jordan is evil, and the entirety of the Green Lantern Corps is gone.


	12. Gotham's Son II

"I'm home!" Jason said as he threw open the cabin door. He took a second to stomp his feet on the rug in front of him, knocking some of the mud off of his shoes. Spring was hitting Gotham full force and that meant that they were constantly battered with rain. Jason had thought Ivy would be pleased with it, but she had just clicked her tongue and informed him that all of this wetness was going to drown the plants.

"Welcome back," Ivy called. Jason followed her voice, and the smell of tea, into the kitchen. Ivy was turning away from the counter as he entered, a clear pot of flowering tea in her hands. They had been using leaves, but now that winter was fading away Ivy had started using these types of teas again. Jason thought he recognized the ingredients in this one - jasmine, amaranth, and marigold. As she set it down on the table, she asked him, "How was school?"

"Good!" Jason slipped his backpack of his shoulder, letting it drop into one of the dining room chairs.

He moved across the kitchen towards the plate resting on the counter. Today it looked like she had put together some type of cheese-toast snack for them. Jason had been surprised when she'd come back from her snit in Arkham and started making him tea and snacks for when he left school. It hadn't seemed to fit with what his idea of Gotham's villains. But Jason was starting to understand that most of Gotham's villains were just people who needed help.

"Do you have any homework?"

"I have to read a chapter of my book and do my journal entry," Jason said. That wasn't really anything new, though. Everyone had to read during their twenty minute reading time in class, as well as read another chapter once they went home and write a new entry in their journal about what had happened in the book and how they felt about it. Before they went home the next day, Ms. Pepper would write them a response. She recommend Jason a lot of books since he went through them so quickly. It had been Ms. Pepper who told him that his previous book 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' had a sequel and helped him find it during library time that week. "But nothing else."

"Okay." Jason set the snack plate down on the table. Once he did, Ivy ruffled his hair. "Thank you for helping."

"No problem!"

Ivy smiled at him for a moment before placing her hand on the back of his head, pushing slightly. "Sit down. I'll grab plates and mugs."

"Okay!" Jason settled in the chair that he had dropped his bag on after moving it. He was supposed to wait for a plate when Ivy made things that would leave crumbs on the table. Jason leaned forward to grab a piece of toast regardless. He had never done anything against the rules when Ivy had first taken him in, but now he knew that Ivy wouldn't hurt him. He didn't think she would kick him out either. "Can we use the Alice in Wonderland cups today?"

The Alice in Wonderland tea set was Jason's absolute favorite. Each of them was pure white with small versions of the sketches from the books on them and smooth golden handles. Ivy had told him once that they had been a present from her mother when she was a girl, drawing her finger across the drawings with a wistful smile on her face.

They didn't use them when Harley was staying with them, and she shared Ivy's bed more often than not, since they made her think bad thoughts, but she wasn't here today.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," Ivy said. She reached up into the cabinet, saying without even looking at him, "Do not get crumbs on the table, Jason."

Jason wondered how she always seemed to know when he was doing something bad. 

* * *

Jason loved his family.

He loved spending afternoons working on his homework with Ivy while drinking tea and eating tiny sandwiches, stomping around in a muddy garden while he helped her tend to the flowers and vegetables, curling up with her on the couch as she read Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinsen to him. He loved the time he spent with Harley; flipping around the living room as she taught him gymnastics, listening to the jokes she told which made him laugh so hard his stomach hurt, baking brownies and cupcakes on rainy days. He loved the days he spent with Victor; listening to stories about Victor and Nora that reminded him for storybook romances, doing experiments in the lab under his watchful eyes, playing in the snow and slipping on ice no matter what the temperature was outside. He loved the afternoons that he spent sitting next to Harvey as he flipped through old law books, listening to the soothing tones of the classical music Harvey's 'bad' side preferred, helping Harvey cook the rich lunches and dinners that he made when Jason stayed with him. He loved the time he spent with Edward and Oswald; sitting on the stools in the Iceberg Lounge and sipping at cherry coke while talking to the bartenders, figuring out the answers to the riddles Edward posed him in-between homework questions, listening to Oswald ramble about the birds in the pictures that he kept framed all over his office and house.

Jason loved his family.

But his family made things difficult when it came to school.

Not because they didn't encourage him or do their best to help him when he stumbled, every single one of them emphasized Jason's education and how important it was while doing their very best to help him with homework, but because it was difficult to make close friends when his family was a group of super-villains.

He couldn't invite his friends to his house because if one of them told their parents that Jason lived in Robins Park with Poison Ivy than Jason risked being the reason why she went to Arkham. He couldn't explain that his cartwheels were fantastic because he'd been taught by Harley Quinn. He couldn't tell them that he knew that homemade ice cream was better than store bought because he'd made his own with Mr. Freeze. He couldn't tell them that the homemade lunches that he brought, that all of them asked for him to share with them, had been made by Two-Face. He couldn't tell them that the riddles he told them came from Riddlers or that he knew which birds were nesting in the trees by the playground because Penguin had a book about them that he read to Jason some nights.

He hated it, because he _wanted_  to talk about his family and all of the amazing things they did for him.

But the one thing that mattered most to Jason was making sure he didn't lose any of them. 

* * *

"Hey kiddo. What are you doing here?"

Jason was sitting at the bar in the Iceberg lounge. He had been reading a book, completely unconcerned by the pounding music and loud conversations sounding him, but he looked up at the words.

Tabitha, one of the lounge's bartenders, was standing in front of him. She was one of the oldest bartenders in the place as well as the one who had been there the longest. She had a miraculous ability to talk herself out of any and every raid at the lounge. Oswald even put her in charge when he was in Arkham, trusting that Tabitha could run and take care of it.

"I'm spending the weekend with Oswald," Jason said.

"Your moms aren't around?"

"Nope. Harley's in Arkham and Ivy had to take a trip." She was in the rain forest right now, destroying the equipment of the moguls trying to destroy the forest. Jason had wanted to go, but school was still in session. She'd promised to take him somewhere when spring break came around, though.

Tabitha hummed a bit. "There a reason Os has you out here instead of in his office?"

"I was sitting in there doing homework while he finished the accounting stuff," Jason said, "but than some guy came to see him. He said they needed the office to discuss something."

"Oh yeah?" Tabitha was quiet for a moment, thinking about something before asking, "Was it a blonde guy with long hair? Kind of scruffy looking?"

Jason thought about it. He'd only seen the man briefly, Oswald hadn't let the man come into the office until Jason was going out the back way and making his way to the bar, but....

"Yeah," he said nodding a little. "That sounds right."

"Mm. Must be Cluemaster again then," Tabitha said, sounding thoughtful.

Jason had heard of Cluemaster, but Ivy ran in different circles than him so Jason hadn't ever met him. He certainly wasn't a member of Jason's family.

"What's he doing here?" Jason asked. He knew that Edward wasn't a huge fan of Cluemaster, so he didn't understand why Oswald would do business with him. Especially not when Cluemaster's caliber was so far below that of the men Oswald usually worked with.

"He's trying to make a deal for some information," Tabitha told him. "His wife and daughter moved while he was locked up. He wants Os to tell him where they are."

Jason sat a little straighter. "Daughter?"

"Yeah. A year or two younger than you, I think."

He didn't really want to play with someone younger than him, second graders were _babies_  and first graders were even worse, but...well... It would be safe to talk to Cluemaster's daughter about his family, wouldn't it? He could tell her about Ivy and Harley, about Victor and Harvey, about Edward and Oswald? He could talk to her about his family and listen to her talk about hers. They could tell each other all of the things that they couldn't tell other kids.

"Do you know her name?"

"Something starting with an S, I think." Catching sight of something over his shoulder, Tabitha said, sounding suddenly distracted,"I'm gonna go take care of something, but I'll get you a coke when I come back alright, kiddo?"

"Alright," Jason said, feeling distracted himself.

He wondered if there was a way to find out more about Cluemaster's daughter. 

* * *

The Penguin was in charge of an information brokering business which stretched not just across Gotham, but across the state and most of the country. He didn't keep his information in places that Jason would have been able to access, didn't just have files lying around his office waiting to be stolen or picked up by the cops, didn't just have an email full of information waiting to be hacked and taken before he could sell it to the correct buyers.

But Jason desperately wanted the information Oswald had on Cluemaster's daughter, so he found a way.

Over the course of his time with Oswald, he would ask casual questions about Cluemaster and what he was looking for. He never asked more than one or two questions at a time, but enough to learn as much as he needed.

He asked about who had visited Oswald and learned that Cluemaster's name was Arthur Brown. He asked who he had been looking for and learned that Tabitha had been right when she guessed that his daughter's name began with S - her name was Stephanie. He asked if Arthur had been able to bargain for anything and learned that Oswald had told him which school his daughter was going to now. He got lucky and after Oswald told him that, the man had commented off hand that it was the same school Jason went to.

Oswald dropped him off at school Monday morning. Jason's guardians always dropped Jason off at the corner near the school, late enough that Jason wasn't there before everyone but early enough that only teachers were around so other parents wouldn't see Jason being dropped off by Gotham's most notorious criminals.

Arriving at school early gave Jason plenty of time to run around the hallways of Gotham Public Elementary, looking at the boards outside of each classroom that displayed student projects and looking for Stephanie's name. He was supposed to go straight to his classroom, but Ms. Pepper had learned that forcing Jason to sit around in the classroom for an hour while waiting for classes to start would just lead to him causing trouble so she'd let him run around as long as he checked in and came back once the school started filling up more.

Oswald hadn't told him anything about Stephanie age, but since Tabitha had thought Stephanie was younger than him he started in the kindergarten wing. He _really_  hoped she wasn't that much younger than him, but he figured it was better safe than sorry.

Much to his relief, he didn't find anything in the kindergarten wing.

He didn't find anything outside of the first grade classrooms either.

On the board outside of Ms. Natasha's class he found a collection of ice cream cones with five scoops on each. One of them was done in shades of purple, going from a dark eggplant all the way to a really light lavender, that had 'Stephanie Brown' written on it in messy lettering.

 _'Yes!'_  he thought as he looked at it.

He felt like he was floating on air as he turned to make his way back to his classroom, ecstatic about the possibility of having a friend to talk to about his family and all the other things that he couldn't tell anyone else. 

* * *

"Hi!" Jason said.

"Um." The girl sitting across from him looked up from her lunch tray, her ponytail of thick blonde curls bouncing with the motion, and up at him. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jason." Remembering what he'd been taught he lifted his hand and stretched it out across the table towards her. She looked at it oddly for a moment before reaching up to grab it. As they shook hands, he said, "You're Stephanie Brown, right?"

"Yes. How do you know that?"

"I've been looking for you!" Letting her hand go, Jason used his own to gesture her towards her. She looked at him for a moment. When she didn't move, Jason gestured a little faster. "Come on! I have to tell you a secret!" She tilted her head a bit, curiously, then leaned across the table towards him. Jason met her halfway. He cupped a hand around her ear, whispering to her, "I'm like you. I live with Poison Ivy." Pulling away from her and settling back into his seat, Jason said, "So we should be friends! That way you can talk to me about your dad and I can talk to you about her!"

"I don't think I'm allowed to be your friend," Stephanie told him as she sat back down herself. "Mommy says that I shouldn't talk to or go anywhere with anyone who asks me about Daddy."

"Ivy said the same thing to me," Jason said. He'd learned that it was safe to talk about Poison Ivy as long as he only called her 'Ivy'. There were plenty of women and girls named that, even in Gotham. Especially in Gotham. Unlike some of his other family members, Ivy was well regarded by certain populations within the city. "But that's only because they think scary adults are going to do something to us! That doesn't mean we can't talk to other kids."

"I don't know..." Stephanie said.

She still sounded unsure, but he could tell she was wavering. He wondered if it was because she sometimes felt as lonely as he did, as isolated and different.

"Please?" Jason pleaded. "It's not like I know your dad. I just heard about you and thought we could be friends."

She pursed her lips, considering. "You promise you don't know my daddy? Because I really don't think Mommy would want me to be friends with you if you did."

"Yeah! I saw him at my uncles place, but I didn't talk to him and I don't really know anything about him." He leaned forward again, setting his elbow on the table and reaching towards her. "Here! I'll pinky swear!"

"As long as you pinky swear." She reached out, putting his hand near his.

Jason took the initiative, bridging the gap between their hands and hooking their pinky fingers together. He moved their hands in a shake like motion twice.

"Friends now?" he asked, not letting go.

Stephanie nodded. "Yup!"

* * *

Despite Stephanie's initial weariness, she and Jason became fast friends.

While they were in different grades, they shared a lunch time. Jason took to eating with her instead of at the table designated for his class. Since Stephanie always got hot lunch while Jason brought his own, they were trade and share the things they'd gotten. Stephanie always gave Jason her milk since she hated it while Jason gave Stephanie whatever drink had been in his lunch, Ivy always packed homemade apple juice or lemonade while Harley sent him with soda and Harvey usually packed Sunny D. On chicken nugget day, Stephanie would share half of hers with Jason. And on days when hot lunch was something Stephanie didn't like, Jason would give her half of a wrap or half of his pasta or whatever it was that had been packed for him that day.

They started spending most of their recess time together too. Sometimes Jason would play kickball with the other third grade boys or Stephanie would have tea parties with the second grade girls, but mostly they played together. Occasionally they would walk around the track together while Jason rambled about all of the books he had read, telling Stephanie stories that she didn't feel like reading herself. Sometimes they would play four square with the other kids, making their way into the first and second square and staying there until recess had ended since no one could beat either of them. Sometimes they would run around the playground equipment playing tag or spies or Superheroes - Stephanie's mom didn't like when she played Heroes and Villains or Cops and Robbers. Sometimes they played house in the wooden cabin that Tony's dad had built for the school the previous summer.

Outside of school, they started playing with each other a lot too. Sometimes they would meet at Gotham Park, which wasn't far from either of their houses. They would ride their bikes around the playground or walk around petting every dog they saw or playing frisbee and catch or Stephanie would bring her chalk so they could doodle on the ground.

And no matter what they were doing, Jason knew that he could talk about everyone in his family.

He pointed out flowers that they saw springing out of the sidewalk cracks and explained how Ivy had taught him why that happened. He taught Stephanie how to handstands and when she asked, she got to tell him that Harley had taught him how to do them. He helped with her math homework and explained that he knew about coin flips and dice rolls because Harvey had helped him with them when Jason had been catching up right after entering school. When Stephanie told him that her mom and her always went figure skating around Christmas, Jason got to share his own stories about figure skating with Victor. He got to share Edward's riddles with her without hiding who they came from and tell her about all of the pranks that Oswald liked to play on Edward at their apartment.

Through spending time with Stephanie and growing closer to her, Jason found himself making his first best friend.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I'm so sorry that I missed last months update. I'm trying to get back to every month updates for everything! But I really appreciate everyone who's still sticking with me through this story despite my inconsistencies!
> 
> 2) I realized while writing this that Jason is a little creepy while looking for Stephanie?? Please let me know if it's too much? I tried to make it make sense with him just being....really desperate for a friend who he could talk to? But let me know if it comes off as TOO much? 
> 
> 3) For anyone confused as to how Jason and Stephanie had lunch and recess together, I went with a system close to my old school. So half of the third grade and half of the second grade would have lunch together while the other halves had recess, than they would switch.


End file.
